


Fall This Illustrious House

by oneinspats



Category: Italian History, Machiavelli - Fandom, Real Person Fiction, Renaissance History
Genre: F/M, M/M, RPF, hahah oh man, my professors would kill me, this is old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:38:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneinspats/pseuds/oneinspats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story is about Machiavelli and high Renaissance Northern Italian politics. Old Medicis and New Medicis! Philosophy! Cesare Borgia! Leonardo da Vinci! Alexander VI! Vague historical references! Piero Soderini! What fun.</p><p>(this is really old. Forgive my younger self)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Cast of Characters: 
> 
> Niccolo Machiavelli – a civil servant-turned-philosopher. Diplomat for the Florentine Republic.  
> Piero Soderini – made Gonfalonier a vita in 1502. (defacto head of the Florentine Republic, but it's more complicated than that). Was in office till 1512 when the Medici were restored and Soderini fled.  
> Francesco Soderini – Bishop of Volterra, diplomat, brother of Piero Soderini. 1516 accused by Leo X (Guilianno de' Medici, son of Lorenzo il Magnifico) of aiding the Petrucci conspiracy, stripped of Cardinals hat and all benefices. Fled from Rome to Venice.  
> Cesare Borgia – Former cardinal, turned general. Son of Pope Alexander VI. Attempting to carve out a Borgia state from the current Italian territories.  
> Leonardo da Vinci – Artist, inventor, dispenser of useful advise.  
> Marietta Machiavelli – Long suffering wife of Niccolo. Nee Mariette Corsini.  
> Lorenzo il Magnifico – (aka Lorenzo di Piero di Cosimo, Lorenzo de Medici, il Magnifico, the magnificent etc.) former head of the Florentine Republic. Grandson of Cosimo de Medici. Patron of the arts.  
> Piero de Medici (di Lorenzo) – Son of Lorenzo il Magnifico. Former head of the Florentine Republic. He was exiled the Spanish retreated back through Italy in 1494. His son, Lorenzo, is who the Prince is dedicated to in 1512.  
> Savonarola – Monk turned quasi-political leader. Helped fill the political vacuum after the exile of the Medici in 1494. "Ruled" Florence for four years before being declared a heritic by Alexander VI and the Catholic Church and burned in 1498. He helped create the Great Council and influenced the writing of the constitution of 1494.  
> Vitelli Vitellozo – General of Cesare Borgia. Eventually captures Urbino from his former master and forms a coalition against Borgia.  
> Angelo Polizianno - Poet and close friend of Lorenzo il Magnifico.  
> Tommaso – Friend of Piero Soderini and Niccolo. Civil servant in the Republic.
> 
>  
> 
> Brief list of relevant de-facto rulers of Florence: (in order from oldest to most "recent")
> 
> Cosimo de Medici (il vecchio)  
> Piero de Medici (the first)  
> Lorenzo de Medici (il Magnifico)  
> Piero de Medici (the second)  
> Savonarola  
> Piero Soderini  
> Lorenzo de Medici (the second)

_"Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,_  
That you would have me seek into myself   
For that which is not in me?"

  
 **1513, Outside Florence**  
  
  
 _He was ordained by God for our redemption, nevertheless it was afterwards seen, in the height of his career that fortune rejected him -_  
  
Bitter words. He could taste them on his tongue and wondered why he was was writing this. To whom he was writing this. Where he was sending this – this – this thing that was a treatise that was an explanation for the contradiction he couldn't erase from within.   
  
His quill was poised above the page, ink budding at the nub so he knew it would blot. Outside a goat bleated and the sun climbed higher in the sky but his mind ignored the blue stretch. Instead there was ink on pale skin and stained sheets spread under him. The walls had been red when they should have been white and the sheets were black with Indian ink.   
  
A knock and a servant looked warily in, saying something about super, about family, about duties, about letters that needed to be answered, about tasks that needed to be seen to, about things he  needed to deal with tomorrow. So he waved a hand and said later.   
  
 _Always later._ A voice he thought he had forgotten was laughing at him, chiding him for remembering the life that was lived a lifetime ago, the life that was no more and would never be again no matter how hard he tried. The voice was laughing – _writing to the Medicis? Really, my dear Niccolo_ \- The voice that was called Piero Soderini, the Gonfaloniere who was supposed to last a lifetime but who was now gone from Florence and from his side and from him. Gone so long ago yet so recently. He wasn't sure which hurt more.   
  
And then there was Cesare Borgia. Borgia the would-be-everything laughing at him for remembering Piero even though he had abandoned Piero in the end. Cesare was all cruel smiles and animated humor that reminded him of empty harvesting fields. Butcher's work done with a sickle and a hand with a talent for growth.   
  
 _Your Excellency._  
  
They were dotted on dirty paper. The room was empty and he wondered, again, to whom exactly he was writing to. Medicis be damned.  
  
 _'Favors from on high are always timely, never late.'_  
  
Cesare was laughing that boyish laugh again and Niccolò wished that his memory of the man had died with the man.   
  
 _I say this because -_  
  
Because, because all he could remember was brown hair and black eyes and candles and vestries and aching knees from worshiping three Gods and smiling in too bright sun on a dusty road with sweetmeat sticky fingers.   
  
Francesco Vettori. Your excellency, Francesco Vettori. He had such things to tell. Things the other man would hardly believe and so would never truly know but must be told lest they break him harder and faster than anything the Medici's had ever done. They could drop him from the highest roof in Florence and it would be nothing to the way Cesare and Piero could break him. Had broken him.   
  
 _Dear Francesco, there was a boy with a black bird on his shoulder, a sword in hand, and the glint of power in his eye. He dominated by looking as he didn't look so much as consume. God would have cowered before him, yet he lies miserable beneath the filthy earth that now holds him tighter than any lover._  
  
But that is the end of it all. And it is always wise to start at the beginning yet this story has no beginning; no middle – only an end, and for that he begged forgiveness.   
  
 _Please bear with me, my dear Francesco, though your eyes will never set themselves upon these pages. You will receive a treatise and a plea, but never myself. I have grown tired of giving myself._

 

  
  
They had always said that he had been born with a gift for words. A gift for spinning tales that wound their way around people's heads and put forth foolish notions into their minds. A gift for lies, his father had insisted with the firm rule of a firm hand and firm Latin grammar. A gift for tall tales and utter nonsense that would do nothing but get the boy into trouble should he say the wrong thing, write the wrong thing. Write the wrong thing in that elegant, prosy, way of his. Write the wrong thing so beautifully that it hurt and so he would hurt and all who knew him would hurt with him.   
  
But he told his father that he was wrong, that he'd be a good citizen, a respectful citizen, a noble citizen and keep his noble mouth shut about his noble city and its noble, noble people. Florence would be dead, gone, and utterly ruined before he lifted quill against her. She would have to be as dead as the Romans, deader in fact, before he could find it in himself to hurt her. She was his everything, after all. She and everything she stood for; for he was a good republican, an honest citizen, and he would always conduct himself as such.   
  
He was sixteen when he took the hand of fair Maria, the first of many fair Marias, and led her to the fields outside Florence. They stretched themselves out under cork trees and giggled as fingers fumbled along, hurting more than pleasing till they finally figured it all out. The coil of heat that had been resting in his stomach dispelled, sinking into the very marrow of his bones. He sighed with her and they ate figs and counted clouds for the rest of the afternoon as he did his best to tell her that he didn't love her and she did her best to tell him she understood.   
  
His father had insisted that he learn the classics, that he be granted the best humanist education possible sans Greek for Bernardo Machiavelli never took to the language and so Niccolò suffered the consequences. But, as he had that one fault in common with Petrarch, he felt that it was possibly not the worst. His fingers would trace the ancient script and he wished for comprehension but could never find the time, nor the true inclination, apart from a vague longing, to learn. The vague longing that was that of a poet who had seen a pretty thing across the street but couldn't bring himself to rise out of the languid contentedness of habit to pursue – sextets would be composed instead and the form and absent fondness would forever be remembered even when desire had fled. He felt that Petrarch and Dante would understand.   
  
And so he found himself coming to age in a world of Plato and Cicero and anti-Aristotle-when-Aristotle-was-anti-common-sense. A world where he wondered if there was more to Greek philosophy than he first thought. He remembered the angel Polizianno laughing at his youthful boasts about Maria, and Lorenzo de Medici looking at his favorite with affection and saying that Niccolò was young and would understand one day. They read Plato to him after that and told him to reread Catullus, that it was the Magnificent's favorite.   
  
But that was before Lorenzo died and Piero, his son, took out his misunderstanding and hatred on the one who reminded him too much of his father whom he would never be. Thus Polizianno was treated with all the kindness due to a traitor and a whore. Niccolò wasn't sure if he was even buried on sacred ground.   
  
It was then Savonarola the Monk happened and the burning of paintings and books  and ideas and wishes and dreams soon followed by the monk himself. And then came the Republic (again, this time with feeling) and the desire to be something more than the son of an ancient line of vaguely dubious claim. His father was amused with his speeches and said to keep to himself, to keep to his rank, and never look to rise above. One didn't have to search far to see what happened to those who did. 

 

  
  
 _My dear Francesco, please bear with me. I have such stories to tell._


	2. A Positive Monster

**1502, Florence**  

  
  
Watching the ink dry, he winced as the candle flittered in the afternoon breeze. It was the millionth letter he had written since morning and he was sure he was done with the job, politics be damned.   
  
"Niccolò?" His shoulders stiffened at the sound of his name. The ever dying sun made dust dance and he wished he could be anywhere but here, anywhere but under the severe eye of the older man watching him from the door.   
  
"Piero Soderini?" He made sure he was all Lorenzo il Magnifico as he said it.   
  
Piero gave a slight smile at the roll of the 'r's, closing the door behind him as he strode over to the ambassador's desk.   
  
"You were always good at imitations," he paused. "In all ways. Your writing, especially. Aristotle, I think."   
  
"I hope not," Niccolò murmured with a sly grin. "I've always been aiming for Plato."   
  
"And you say you hate the Medicis."   
  
"I've never said that, you've said that and then put the words in my mouth, you cruel man."   
  
They paused, staring at each other before Piero laughed, letting Niccolò know that he was safe. Safe to jest about times he could barely remember and that Piero remembered only too well. Old memories die harder than old habits and Piero was as true a Florentine as there ever was. Piero Soderini could be a Medici when he wanted to be, but Niccolò preferred to dance with devils he knew than with devils he could barely remember.   
  
"A regular Polizianno, you are," Piero murmured as he took a seat opposite Niccolò who found himself suddenly alarmed. Piero only sat when there was actual business to discuss and he only came to Niccolò when the business was something no one else wanted to touch. "Borgias. What do you think of Borgias?"  
  
Silence. Niccolò carefully put his papers away, fingers dancing on knotted pine and his mind was reading allegories into the wood.   
  
"I've always found them…fascinating." Carefully said with face a beatific blank.   
  
"Quite. We're discussing the one lacking scruples," Piero was all clipped business. "Rome rid herself of a negligent cardinal and got herself an excellent general."   
  
"One of the pope's boys?"   
  
"Yes, Cesare."   
  
"Still carving out the Borgia state is he?"   
  
"Yes," mused slowly. "And the never-quite-warm feelings between us have cooled to new depths. He's up to something in Romagna, I think Urbino is going to fall soon."   
  
"He'll actually take it?"   
  
"For now, till someone else takes it from him. The next Holy Father perhaps, Lord forgive me for blaspheming and such."   
  
Niccolò allowed himself an ironic smile which only earned him a warning tut from the older man reminding him of worried lectures from his father and uncle. Show more respect, you've seen what happened to those who don't. Savonarola is never kind, nor are those who follow him.  
  
But Lorenzo was, Niccolò would remind them with the surety of a man who wasn't sure at all. Lorenzo was, even if he was flirting with the monk, he was always kind. And he would then be reminded that the cult of the Ancients died with Il Maginifico, Plato was put back in his cave, and Niccolò had better learn to live with the world as it was, not as he would have it. Always remember that The Republic never came to be, and Aristotle and Cicero spent there lives grasping as should-have-beens, would-have-beens, and could-have-beens.   
  
"What would you have me do?"   
  
"We need to inform Borgia, the would-be-prince, that Florence has friendly feelings towards him and that we are willing to negotiate another treaty of alliance, if he is willing. The usual. And pardon all our past transgressions since we've pardoned his."   
  
"And Borgia, the Holy Father?"   
  
"Have the would-be-prince relay to the would-be-Holy-Father that our intentions and feelings towards Rome are as warm as they ever were."   
  
"I'll gloss over all past disagreements, then, shall I?"  
  
He made damn sure his smile was pure amusement and Piero appreciated him for it.   
  
"Blame them on the Medicis or the Great Council and we should be in the clear. And if that doesn't work, just play for time."  
  
"Ah, our usual strategy then? Dither about with our arms flailing?"   
  
"One of these days, my dear Niccolò, you will say the wrong thing to the wrong person."   
  
"So I've been told. Something to drink?" He was standing now, with the window behind him so Piero was given a silhouette of the younger man.   
  
"Not at the moment, but partake yourself if you're thirsty," he replied with a nonchalant air and watched as Niccolò calculated an answer. The ambassador would have calculated the exact measure of every breath he took, if he could have. He would have calculated the weight of his soul and probably would have bargained enough to sell it at above market price. But such were the Machiavellis, and as such they had always been. Enough noble blood to know their rank but not enough to be potent. It was a vile mix, Piero found, especially when combined with a cunning mind that found irony an all too pleasant thing.   
  
"I shall, if you don't mind. When will I be departing for the wondrous world of the Borgia court?"   
  
Piero didn't even bother to note the tone in which the sentence had been said. Instead, he picked at his nails in boredom as Niccolò crossed the room to the decanter, robes rustling in suddenly still air.   
  
"A week tomorrow. Cesare has sent the obligatory letter saying that everything has been arranged. You are to be given a room with a lovely view," he paused with a frown that was too real for Niccolò's liking. "With the would-be-prince that could either mean the mountains or the decapitated heads of the recently condemned."   
  
"I'll hope for the latter then, in order to get the former."   
  
"Quite," a pause, Niccolò sat back down and watched Piero over the rim of his glass. "It's a delicate issue, I think. Though you've always handled delicacy well. Think France, but more local. You know how we Italians are with each other. I'm a Florentine so I condemn all Milanese except when I condemn all Romans or Venetians. Pisa will soon be ours again, so I don't give a fig about them except for their port. You understand me?"   
  
"I shall do as you say."   
  
"I'll send Tommaso over later, to fill you in on the details. And Francesco will be traveling with you." Piero stood with a grim look that did nothing to help the mood. "I will see you tomorrow, good evening, Niccolò."   
  
"Good evening, Piero." He whispered the name and wasn't Lorenzo as he said it because the older man's gaze told him to not be Lorenzo because Lorenzo was dead and Piero di Lorenzo di Piero di Cosimo de Medici was gone, and no one left of that family was Magnificent so let it drop. Please, let it drop. And Niccolò did not fancy himself a cruel man, so he did. 

 

  
  
"You're leaving again, aren't you?" Marietta was standing by the door with hands on her hips, a firm line for lips.   
  
"Business, my dear, business." He stood opposite her, waiting for the impasse to pass. She remained where she was, as stalwart and stubborn and as beautiful as ever. He liked to think that was why he had married her. That and her Corsini name and Corsini money.   
  
"I married you, Niccolò, not your job."   
  
"My dear, in marrying any man you marry his job. It's part of the deal, now please stand aside so we can discuss this without all of Florence hearing us."   
  
She glowered but did as he asked, closing the door behind him with a sigh that made him feel guilty. Guilty because she was young and beautiful and loved him. Loved him despite of everything and as hard as he tried he could only bring himself to be fond of her, to be appreciative of her, but never to love her. Had she been a Soderini, perhaps, a Medici certainly for opposites that aren't truly opposites attract, maybe even the Roman Orsini. But she was a Florentine Corsini, a delicate Corsini who loved him, and he hated himself all the more for it. Every letter she wrote to him he burned, if he didn't, he knew that her words would swallow him alive and make him relive every damnable moment and every damnable lie and every damnable word that escaped past his damnable lips when he was near her.   
  
"I'm to leave in a week, to speak with a Borgia."   
  
"Which one?" She was pouring wine with her back to him.   
  
"Does it matter? And the fratricidal one, since you're curious."   
  
"Cesare?"  
  
"The very one."   
  
She wasn't happy but contained it well with a heavenly smile that made him think of a Giotto fresco for all its attempts at perfection that so utterly missed the mark.   
  
"How long will you be gone?"   
  
"I'm not sure, a few months, perhaps more, perhaps less. Until Piero calls me back."   
  
She moved silently about the room, standing so she was behind him and wrapped arms about his waist. The wine was suddenly bitter and he needed to go outside, to go away, to flee from Marietta, from the achingly, disastrously beautiful Tuscan hills, from Piero and his sanity, even from his sweet Francesca who saw him only when he could make it and whose body was something he found he couldn't live without yet wanted nothing to do with.   
  
"Be safe," it was murmured into his back, her hands so sickeningly possessive. "Write to me."   
  
"Of course, I shall try."   
  
And she was saying 'I love you' and he was replying that she was like Marie, and the others before, and that he was trying but it wasn't possible, but please believe him he was trying his damnedest to love her because she was his wife and he was her husband and he was regretting everything and all too aware that had he truly known himself he should never have married. 

 

  
  
"Delicious wine, Piero, as always." Tommaso was grinning a too wide grin, wine sloshing in his cup. Niccolò sat comfortably between the youth who reminded everyone of Guiliano but no one would admit it, and Piero who was too fair and too Republican to be Piero di Cosimo yet was Piero di Cosimo all the more for it.   
  
"I thank you, Tommaso, a toast to our soon to be leaving ambassador and friend." He raised a glass precariously in Niccolò's direction. "Best of luck to you. May you prosper well with the Great Sinner and get us an advantageous position."   
  
"I shall certainly try, so long as you remain alive and clear of Strozzi knives" Niccolò replied with a chuckle, sipping the wine with relish. "You found more of Polizianno's poetry you said. All Ovid, wasn't it?"   
  
"Ovid," Piero waved his hand in dismissal. "Ovid and Plato and about dear, sweet, most beloved Lorenzo."   
  
"He died because of him, I heard," Tommaso put in after a moment of reflection. The obligation of the drunk to remember past loves fulfilled.   
  
"He died because of Piero di Lorenzo and Savonarola." Piero replied sharply.   
  
"Then by proxy because of Lorenzo, after all, who invited the blasted Monk to Florence?"   
  
"Niccolò? Opinions on the poor angel Polizianno?"   
  
"Angelo Polizianno," the ambassador drawled, inflecting as he vaguely remembered Lorenzo doing. His fingers dragged over the stem of the glass, eyes glazed as he watched candles flicker. There were voices in his memories, voices and laughs and songs and dance and happiness. Happiness that was only just beginning to be understood again. Florence had forgotten, he knew, how to be happy, forgotten for four long years and Niccolò had been as pleased as he possibly could when it ended. Monks had never been his choice of people for leaders. "Della Mirandola was what I heard. Or more to the point, Piero di Lorenzo was after Mirandola and Polizianno was an unfortunate accident of too close a proximity to a hated enemy." He paused with a frown, mind too muddy. "What I'm trying to say is that Piero didn't mean to kill his former tutor, he meant to kill the man who reminded him of his father even more than Angelo."   
  
"I've three sons," Piero recited. "One stupid, one smart, and one sweet."   
  
"That Lorenzo did."   
  
A moment passed as the men continued to sip wine, watching flames flicker in the still evening air. Tommaso shifted his weight, wincing and knowing that everything was going to spin when he finally decided to stand.   
  
"Remind me," he began, waving his finger authoritatively and narrowly avoided raming it into Niccolò's ear. "Remind me, dear, dear friends to never. Never! Never, I say, let me drink an entire decanter of Piero's wine. Again. For I am gone. Gone! With a very large emphasis on it all." He paused, grinning madly at Niccolò's and Piero's amusement. "Tell me about the little fucker you're going to visit. He wants our Leonardo I'm told."   
  
"I think the English phrase for Tommaso's state is 'as drunk as a Lord'. Or so I was told in France," Niccolò said, removing the wine from Tommaso's grasp. "And Cesare," he laughed. "I just want to know if he actually did the dirty deed with his sister."   
  
"Damn well he did!" Tommaso stood woozily, fists trying to hit the table but missing. "I mean, Christ's blood, look at her. I'd do her."   
  
"Tommasso, you'd do a cow if it batted it's eyelashes at you convincingly enough."   
  
"Piero's right," Niccolò chuckled at the younger man's sudden anger that didn't last for more than a minute.   
  
"What about your Francesca, Niccolò? Going to miss her?" Tommaso was leering with breath smelling of garlic and wine and making Niccolò suddenly nauseous.   
  
"Of course, and I expect you to keep an eye on her."   
  
"I'll leave that to her husband, his job anyhow. But Cesare! Tell me-" a drunken stagger back to his seat. "Tell me about the little fucker."   
  
"The little fucker fucks," Piero intoned with a bland smile at Niccolò, doing his best to keep the ambassador's mood up despite everything and all that was happening. Despite Francesca and Tommaso's new flirtations, despite Marietta's doe eyes, despite the problems of state, the problems of finance, the problems of the Great Council, the  _Dieci_ , the arguments for  _governo stretto_  or  _largo_. Despite everything and all aside.  
  
"At least someone is," Tommaso muttered moodily. "I'm not, that's for sure."   
  
"Laura finally realize that you're a cad?" Niccolò jibed. "It's about time, I say."   
  
"No, she finally realized that I'm broke."  
  
"Ah, that too. A cad and broke, good luck my dear friend, good luck."   
  
Tommaso glared but refrained from replying, either because he was too kind to hurt the older man, or too drunk to think of anything to say – regardless, Piero was thankful for the sudden silence and the more cheerful expression that had crossed Niccolò's face. Tommaso could tear the ambassador apart if he wanted to. One confession of an all too true sin with an all too present lady and Niccolò would break. One could only handle so much of reality without needing some absence of it.   
  
"I don't think he did," Piero suddenly said. "Do the dirty deed with his sister, that is. Unless he did it while she was still married."   
  
"It's been known to happen," Niccolò murmured with a fiendish smile. "Purity is not a widely spread virtue here in Italy. We've too many priests for us to be truly pure. Anyway, they're Spanish. Spaniards have always been a little weird."   
  
"And his brother? Do you think he killed him?"   
  
"Probably, I mean, it truly doesn't matter, but most likely."   
  
"Well, an incestuous, fratricidal, sexual deviant – I wish you luck, Niccolò, I wish you luck."   
  
Niccolò offered a wan smile and drank to the health of his friends, his country, and their all too uncertain future.   
  


 

  
  
 **1502, Urbino**  
  
Write to me. Marietta had asked him again. She had been standing in the palazzo watching him ready his horse. Write to me, you've always written beautifully. It will remind me of you. Write to me, so I know that you are safe, so I know that you are well. I worry for you. I worry for you.   
  
She had asked it all with that angelic smile that was too much imperfect-perfect Giotto so he had promised he would. Promised with brilliant words and sweet, sweet kisses and smiles. She had known he was lying but he didn't care.   
  
"Writing to a sweetheart?" Francesco Soderini was leaning over his shoulder and watching the carefully worded letter slowly creep its way across the page.   
  
"My wife," Niccolò answered his fellow ambassador. Though Francesco was more banker than ambassador, let alone Bishop, like many a Florentine before him. Political power was all money, after all, church be damned.   
  
"Ah, shame." A pause. "A worldly woman?"   
  
"Hardly, but she likes it and to keep hearth and home happy I jot a few lines to her every now and again."   
  
There was a pat on his back, "Good man, good man," and Francesco absently wandered from the room humming a Misere. "We're meeting the Duke again, later tonight," was called down the hall, pure after thought. "Dress well."   
  
  
 _My Dear Marietta,  
  
I have arrived in Urbino, as you may be able to discern. Cesare pulled a Borgia and captured the city he meant to do no harm to.  
  
I write to tell you that I am well and in general good health and cheer. The journey was as all journeys are – too long yet too short and all in all leaving something to be desired. What that something is I am still struggling to figure out. If you have any insights please inform me post haste.   
  
I hope you are keeping well and that the estates are in order. Jocapo wrote to tell me that the horses and cattle and other Beasts of the Earth are doing everything that is expected of them at the farm._   
  
  
And he stopped. What else was there to write? That the woman he had slept with two nights ago had elegant legs but her breasts were too small? That he found the face of the would-be-prince to be handsome, though he had only seen it from the soft glow of a single candle? That he had saddle rash? That the mountains were magnificent here in Urbino and that the court was everything one would expect? That Francesco was possibly the worst traveling companion one could hope for yet the most genius? That he missed Francesca and was hoping that Tommaso would treat her well?   
  
  
 _You must write to tell me how you are. I am desirous to hear of all that is happening in Florence. Are the chickadees well? Are the noses of the dogs wet? Do the birds sing? You know of what I mean and what I want to hear about. I am writing to Piero as well, to tell him to check in on you to make sure you are well and have everything you need. Keep good cheer, I shall be home sooner than expected.  
  
I am to meet the Duke for a second time tonight. We met when we first arrived, pulled into a dank room and he was wearing brilliant black. It was all bluff, of that I am sure. It's the why that concerns me. So!  I've expectations for tonight, expectations that I can't begin to describe. They're not high yet very high. He did well on the first act so we shall see how he performs on the second. Be happy.  
  
  
Yours, as always, &tc. &tc. Te Deum, Lord Save us All, &tc.   
  
Niccolò _  
  
  
He found himself sealing the letter though he wanted to burn it. Wanted to destroy it. Wanted to forget it though he knew he never would.   
  
He had lied. Not lied so much as told stories. Told stories because he had been born with a gift for words and he didn't want to get into trouble, didn't want to tell the wrong thing to the wrong person. So he said Piero was checking in on her and left out Francesca though Marietta knew all about her. Left out his hatred and love for Tommaso. Left out his new fascination that was beginning to bloom for this Spanish upstart bastard. Left out the blueness of the sky and the sweet smell of harvested hay. And instead told stories about Jocapo and their farm and the journey and wanting to know about Florence and everything and anything he could think of that was the opposite of what he truly desired.   
  
Te Deum indeed. For we are all damned. Amen.

 

 

"I am not pleased, my lords."  
  
The room was dark again and Cesare was all black, pure black, never ending black and Niccolò found himself plunging into the absence that was Cesare's everything.  
  
"Florence has made promises that she has not honored! And shows no intention on honoring!" Bluster, bluster, bluster, Niccolò furrowed his brow. Oh this was pure bluster.   
  
"You, sirs, owe me an explanation. I was of the impression that we were allies and yet I am treated no different than Pisa. Milan has proven more congenial than you!"  
  
"I beg your pardon, my lord," Niccolò murmured when Francesco showed no inclination of replying. "But you have not been raped and pillaged so I've severe doubts that you have been treated like Pisa. If you had you wouldn't be able to walk at the moment."  
  
Silence. The Bishop's eyes were blazing fire as he silently willed the younger man to quiet down. To keep his mouth shut. To not use such words even though words were the only thing Florence had, and the only thing Niccolò knew how to use.  
  
"You're a card," Cesare said slowly, face hidden in the shadows of his hat. The only colour he wore was the white plume that burst out of dark folds and jutted forward in a too gaudy manner. "You're a damn card."  
  
"You take my meaning then, my lord?" He made sure his smile was coy and Cesare returned it.  
  
"I do."  
  
"And may I remind you that we entered Pisa through the back door, we're going in the front with you."  
  
Again silence. And oh Francesco wanted to murder him, he knew. Murder him swiftly and soundly.  
  
"Tell me," Cesare chuckled out. "Do you speak to all lords in such a forward manner?"  
  
"Of course not, that would be unseemly. I merely thought that you would have the mettle to persevere through my boorishness, and the sort of mind to appreciate it."  
  
Cesare was barking out a laugh as he clapped Niccolò on the shoulders, "my kind of man," he was saying, leading him from the group. Niccolò did his best to smile benignly and ignore Francesco's fury. Piero would be amused, he told himself. Piero would find this funny, would be entertained by the Bishop's anger and frustration, Niccolò promised himself this and more as he was guided down dank halls and he made sure to keep promising himself these things because all of hell was resting on it.  
  
  
  
"You spent three hours with him, sans company, and you say there is nothing to report?" Francesco was staring at him with all the fury of the storm and none of its power. Niccolò chose not to reply, sealing a letter to Piero instead. To the Signoria, officially, but Piero in truth. Soderini was the best man in Florence to send the letter to. No other would understand the contents, much less agree to them.  
  
"Did Cesare require money from us? Did you tell him that it was Vitellozo's fault for our hostility a few months back since he made the first move against us? Niccolò," they were facing each other and older man was close to pleading. "What passed?"  
  
"No to the first, and in a manner of speaking to the second. And you know the contents of this letter, if anyone asks."  
  
"How am I to know its contents?"  
  
"You signed it."  
  
"I did not."  
  
Earnest eyes. "Yes, you did. Just now. I must leave in a few days, to answer to the Signoria. Keep Cesare company while I'm gone. Tell him the bawdy stories of your youth."  
  
"Niccolò Machiavelli."  
  
"Francesco Soderini."  
  
"You are a positive monster."  
  
Silence. The ambassador smiled.  
  
"Thank you."  
  


  
  
It was on the rolling hills of Urbino that Cesare found him; eyes closed and face to the wind. He was thinking of Marietta and Francesca and Piero and wondering how they were and worrying that Tommaso would be too hot for Florence to hold when in truth he was simply too hot for Niccolò to hold, to stomach, to tolerate.  
  
"You're appearing poetic," the general murmured with an easy smile to the back of Niccolò's head. The older man nodded, eyes still closed, lips drawn into a tight line. "What are you thinking about?"  
  
"Home," truth was decided on as the best answer though he had been tempted to spin tales.  
  
"A love you miss?"  
  
A love, yes. That he missed? No. And oh how he wanted to say yes, wanted to love her. Love her as Mirandola wrote about love, as Polizianno wrote about love, as Boticelli painted about love. Love her for her soul, for her cosmic other worldly being, as Plato intended. Find God through her and their love.  
  
"No," he said finally looking over at Cesare with an unreadable face. The would-be-prince found that part the most disconcerting. "Yes," he amended with a slight smile, fingers suddenly lingering on the letter pouch. "Yes and no."  
  
"A lust and a love then?"  
  
He nodded, unwilling to voice consent to something he didn't want to be true.  
  
"Who's the woman? I've an Angela at the moment, she's a sweet thing in her own way."  
  
"A woman of excellent standing and good reputation."  
  
"I wouldn't expect anything less."  
  
The wind picked up again and their robes rustled in the thin breeze. The town lay behind them and Niccolò was suddenly wondering how many lives were happening there. How many people breathed the same air, ate the same food, drank the same water, fucked the same fuck and how their lives were so changed yet unchanged by these tides of fortune men of politics deemed so important.  
  
"And the man?" Cesare asked it quietly, discreetly, knowingly.  
  
"A man of excellent standing and good reputation."  
  
"Do you take Michelangelo's view, then?"  
  
"Hardly."  
  
"So you do then, whole heartedly."  
  
The smile Cesare gave him was blinding in its knowledge, in its surety, in its complacency. It hurt, that smile, that understanding, and Niccolò wanted to hate the man for it, hate the man for knowing him better than he knew himself, for knowing him before he had a chance to return that knowledge. And Cesare wanted an answer, he could see. Wanted an affirmation for the knowledge he so surely possessed.  
  
So, instead, since Niccolò never granted easy victories, he told a story. Told a story because that was all he knew how to do. All he knew he could do. And he told it long and well so midday bells were chiming as they wandered back to the city in silence for Niccolò had run out of words and Cesare felt that no more were needed.  
  
  


  
"You will come back?" The would-be-prince was standing in the door of the ambassador's room, watching him pack his books. There was a brilliant smile at the Ovid and Catullus.  
  
"If I am sent back, to where ever back may be."  
  
"Your sentences are too full of words and too empty of meaning for my tastes."  
  
"Back is your court and when I am next sent to it, it may not be in Urbino so I must keep locations open. Hence – where ever back may be." He said it to his saddle bag and ignored the dark eyes that were black gold by the way they glittered in candle light.  
  
"Send my love to your -"  
  
"I shall," he looked up suddenly, face so empty Cesare felt ashamed of the soft grin that had been on his own lips. "And give my love to your Angela. May she continue to be sweet in her own way."  
  
The younger man nodded, entering the room with a plodding gate, closing the door softly behind him. Niccolò forced himself to ignore those slow, methodical, practiced movements. Forced himself to ignore the pale hands that stood out against night blue fabric, to ignore that questioning, questioning, never satisfied gaze.  
  
"The artist," it was hissed into his ear. Cesare's voice was a full Spanish Roman accent. Niccolò hated it and loved it. "Bring me back the artist and all will be well." Fingers were stroking his face; he dutifully organized his books by author. "Our agreement, Niccolò. Don't forget it."  
  
"I shan't," and it was breathier than he would have liked it to be but Cesare was good enough to not react and left with a low bow and kind smile that was too kind so it was in fact cruel.  
  
  
  
  
He was reading Livy and contemplating a commentary on it when Piero walked in unannounced. His face was as a storm from the Alps and Niccolò readied himself for the deluge. The deluge that didn't come. Piero merely watched him finish the sentence, eyes fiery yet unreadable.  
  
"I have spoken to him," he finally said as Niccolò turned to face him, face mirroring the older man's in its perfected absence of emotion.  
  
"And?"  
  
"He has agreed."  
  
There was silence before Niccolò sighed. The mood dispelled, he relaxed back into the chair, eyes closing for the briefest of moments. When they opened Piero was sitting across from him and there were lines that he swore hadn't been there before. Lines that should never have been there, he felt.  
  
"You said you thought Borgia was bluffing," he began it slowly, making sure Niccolò's attention was fully on him. On him and not out the window, not with his mistress who was no longer his, not with the strange Spaniard in the hills of the south, not on the troubles that happened every time he walked into his house. "I've just received word from the French. Louis had been fully prepared to defend us, had in fact sent troops to aid us against Borgia had there been trouble." A letter slid across the desk. "You were right."  
  
"It was a gamble, a damned gamble and now we've lost Leonardo."  
  
"We've lost Leonardo only so long as Leonardo wants to be lost," he allowed a smile hoping Niccolò would follow suite. When the ambassador remained untouchable he stopped, wondering what was happening and why all of a sudden Niccolò was made up of pure distance. "Niccolò, is everything all right?" A delicate pause. "He hasn't threatened  _you_  in any way, has he?"  
  
"Of course not," he waved the concern that was making those lines that should never have been there appear, the concern that was always present whenever Niccolò was concerned. Piero said it was out of respect to the younger man's father, out of respect to the Machiavelli line – Bernardo's impoverished bastardization aside. Out of respect for Florence, out of respect for the ancients and their shared admiration for the glories of the Roman Republic they loved to believe had founded their adored city. Out of respect for a million and one things to be counted in a million and one days and yet never,  _never_  out of respect for Niccolò himself.  
  
"Leonardo will be leaving in early July. He has a few things to finish here then he will be off. I'd think two and a half weeks at the earliest." The tone was all business now since Piero could see that Niccolò was in no mood for it to be anything but that. "You will be sent back as well, to negotiate further details of the treaty."  
  
"Will Francesco be coming along?"  
  
"We shall see," the pause was as delicate as glass. "Depends on how things play out. What does the would-be-prince want with our da Vinci?"  
  
"I couldn't say. He wouldn't elaborate. But I do know that Borgia means to win Italy. Italy in all her entirety no one withstanding."  
  
"The letter he sent made up Leonardo's mind for him, he wasn't sure before you delivered it."  
  
"I'm not surprised."  
  
"Do you know the contents?"  
  
"Hardly," Niccolò's laugh was bitter and Piero wondered when so much of the younger man had died, when so much of the younger man had become so bitter. Wondered but forced himself to ignore the fact that Niccolò had always been this way. This way since he was a boy and had witnessed the Pazzi conspiracy and the wars and daily murders that bloodied the already too bloody streets of Florence. Wondered but forced himself to ignore the fact that the boy had been raised on the depravities of Italian politics and always seemed to fair so much the better for it. "Borgia would never disclose such information to me."  
  
"Really? He wrote to say he had taken a liking to you," a new piece of paper came into Niccolò's hands. "Wrote requesting that we send you back if we are to send any ambassador. You were only there a few days," eyes became piercing so Niccolò refused to meet them.  
  
"I made bawdy sex jokes about Pisa, that's why he likes me."  
  
"That's all?"  
  
"He judges people within the first few minutes, I noted. So I took those first few minutes to make damn well sure he liked me. Your brother Francesco," a gleeful chuckle. "Didn't fare so well."  
  
Piero let the jibe slide with an affable smile, pouring himself wine and listening with something akin to contentedness as Niccolò prattled on with stories of the would-be-prince and the mountainous world of Urbino.  
  
  
  

   
Francesca wanted to see him. Her hand was achingly familiar and he wondered if she still smelled of roses and chamomile. Did she still favor the nape of her neck or had Tommaso unearthed a new spot Niccolò would never had thought to look? Were her hands still soft and lips sweet?  
  
The paper smelled of her and she was asking after him, wanting to know if he was well, if everything had gone as he would have liked, if he was in as good spirits as he was when he left. And her questions left him longing for her and for her absence and left him knowing that she truly didn't want to see him. There was a younger man now, he knew, a younger man who was handsome and sweet and caring and everything she had always wanted. So damn her to hell, and damn Tommaso to hell, and damn Piero and Borgia to hell, even Marietta – he was done with them all. Done with them so long as he continued drinking and he was loath to think of what he would have to deal with in the morning.  
  
  
  


The duke couldn't control his own army. Niccolò was convinced of this as he stared at the missive. Couldn't control his own commanders, his own advisors, his own sister, brother, father. He was riding on fortune and it was going to all end one day. End horribly and explosively or else slowly dwindle away like so many grains of sand slipping through fingers. He felt like quoting Socrates but refrained for it was evident that Piero was not in the mood.  
  
"My dear Niccolò, please pay attention."  They were standing in the piazza near Piero's home, conferring with heads lowered that let all passing Florentine's know that something was afoot. "Vitellozo is on the move and Borgia is reacting. We've sent messages to Cesare informing him that we remain his allies and that Florence is a place of refuge should he need it."  
  
"For as long as we can keep Vitellozo's troops out."  
  
"It's the sentiment that counts, I think."  
  
"You hope, actually."  
  
"Glad to have you back," the smile was honest and Niccolò felt something swelling in his chest he couldn't put his finger on so pushed it to the side in favor of the surety of his knowledge of the political field. "Leonardo writes that Borgia is to go to Imola."  
  
"He wrote that back in July, it's October now," Niccolò gave a lingering unsure look. "Our artist is getting old."

"Biagio seconds him, enthusiastically."

"And you want me to go to Imola now?"  
  
"We offered Francesco to Borgia, saying that you had personal reasons for staying," he smiled and refrained from mentioning Marietta and her news for Niccolò didn't look as if he could handle it. "Borgia didn't take kindly to the suggestion and stated," that delicate as glass pause again. "Well, he stated, adamantly, that he wanted you as diplomat and no one else."  
  
"Fair enough I suppose, when am I to leave?"  
  
"A week. Ready yourself, I'm thinking it'll be subversive war at his court."  
  
"And what does Leonardo write?"  
  
"That the harvest is ready."  
  
"Must he always write in code? Sometimes I wonder if he is more spy than artist."  
  
"Spy and artist, spy and philosopher, spy and writer – there's something about them that goes together," Piero mused it with a carefully bemused look. Niccolò simply offered a sly smile in return.  
  
"I suppose, if you insist. What about politicians? If I am to be a spy then you must be something."  
  
"Lover, I'd like to think. But I have my doubts."  
  
"Only have your doubts if you discuss treaties and and the art of war after the sordid act."  
  
"I take it that that's not the acceptable post-coitus conversation?"  
  
"So Francesca informs me."  
  
The smile on Piero's face became gentle as he took Niccolò's arm.  
  
"It's good to have you back, a damn shame to lose you again."  
  
"I'll be home by Easter, I think." He stopped, catching the look in Piero's eye. "I don't know any more than you," he quickly assured him.  
  
"You may not know more but you always seem to see more."    
    
He let the compliment float by with a wave of his hand and a look that said that's enough now, no need to make a fuss, I'll be home soon. That's enough now, that's enough.  
     
  
  
  
Marietta said not a word as he readied his bags. So he left with a kiss to her cheek and an assurance of his love and goodwill that, to her credit, she did not believe.  
  
  
  
  
He was with Cicero as he traveled to Imola. With Cicero is spirit, in mind, in body, and soul but not will, not desire, not agreeance. No more than he was in agreeance with Plato and Aristotle and their too other worldly concerns. Concerns of the ends and means and Good and Justice and the End as in the  _telos_ , which didn't have a true meaning in Latin. Frenchmen with Louis said it was a  _je ne sais quoi_  and would shrug their shoulders in their vague French way. The English would just say damn if they knew. What use were Greeks anyhow? Did they know how to keep accounts? Did they barter with tight fisted Dutch and Florentines over wool prices? Did they contend with kings and wars within and without and the issue of succession? Did they ever meet the Welsh? The Scotts?  
  
No, Niccolò had answered. No, because they made art and wrote philosophy and searched for meaning in a seemingly meaningless life. Niccolò had thought it profound at the time but he was beginning to doubt it all. Urbino, Froli, Imola, all of Romagna – for what? Pisa, Milan, Venice, Verona – for what? Leonardo da Vinci – for what?

Glory. He could hear that Spanish accented voice hiss it. Not as strong as the would-be-holy-father's but still very much Spanish despite all his Italian blood. Glory. The only end to a political life. A life well lived. Glory every lasting. Amen.

 _Telos_  found.  
  
  
  
  
"So you've arrived," the voice was the would-be-prince's and Niccolò caught himself smiling something smug. The fact that the younger man felt anything aside from a light passing interest was beginning to dawn on him. A foreign notion and so all the more thrilling.  
  
"That I have, at your summons, of course."  
  
"My summons and the  _Signoria's_  orders."  
  
He was wearing black and silver with that too white feather in his cap. There was a word that the English ambassador to Louis had used to describe such a man and it fit better than anything he could have come up with in Italian but he found he couldn't remember it. It began with an 'F' and Cesare was looking puzzled at his sudden pensiveness.  
  
"I was thinking of a word to describe you with," he explained as the younger man took his arm and pulled him from his chair and books and stories.

"It was flattering, I hope."

  
"Always."  
  
 "Never, then." But the smile he gave was cheery and Niccolò could understand why Urbino and Imola and all the others had gone without a fight. Cesare was youth and eagerness and everything handsome combined into one. Who wouldn't want such a prince? Even Florence would have fallen to the charm, the je-ne-sais-quoi. Lorenzo il Magnifico had been a Cesare but a more human one. Niccolò wasn't sure which one he preferred.  
  
"How are you finding our artist?" Niccolò asked as he was guided into a gallery. There were faces and long dead eyes he felt he should know staring down at him. "I hope he is making the deal worth while."  
  
"He is, certainly. I think you got the raw end."  
  
"If you insist."  
  
"Florentines and their freedom," it was hummed and Cesare was all bubbly happiness. The anger, the hidden cruelness, the everything that was dark in Urbino was suddenly gone under the sun of victory in Imola. "It'll be gone one day, your Soderini can't hold out the world forever. Whether by Milan or Venice or the Medici – it will be gone."  
  
"Or by you."  
  
Silence which was consent and Niccolò allowed himself a small smile as he was delivered into an airy room. It was empty save for a large table, a high backed chair and the sight of worn boots propped up and the start of a stained tunic and leggings.  
  
"I thought you would want to see each other, both being Florentines."  
  
The man in the chair stood, the sound of boots hitting the floor preceded his bow and greeting. Niccolò unlaced his arm from Cesare's and strode forward, grasping Leonardo's shoulders and pulling him into a hug.  
  
"Been a while, Leo! I missed you while you were in Florence, ships passing in the night."  
  
The older man smiled back and his face was the knotty pine tree that Niccolò knew all too well.  
  
"I was keen on keeping my head low, you were busy anyhow with work, wife, and roaming."  
  
"That I was," the grimace was dramatic so Leonardo knew to laugh. Glancing back towards Cesare he gave another bow.  
  
"You've brought a devil into your lair," he said with pat on Niccolò's back. "He's a damn sneaky one. I'm convinced he'll talk his way out of hell and into heaven."  
  
"Why would I do that? You'll be in hell, so will Tommaso, and Cesare here, and everyone else we know, it'll be a grand old time. Besides, I've no desire to reside in the same place as our monk Savonarola."  
  
Leonardo, Niccolò remembered, had a boisterous laugh. A laugh that would fill the whole room and his Moorish eyes were dancing. It was the happiest he had seen him in years.


	3. The Coming Winter

The duke was eager for a chase. He went on about hounds and horses and bows and men when what he really wanted was to say something about blood spilt on autumn leaves and the screams of dying boors that sounded much like the screams of dying men since the screams of the dying always seem to sound the same. Or that was what Niccolò imagined the duke to think. He often found himself imagining the worst, the most morbid things when it came to his would-be-prince and liked to think himself the precursor to history and posterity.  
  
"They won't remember you for being a patron of our Leonardo," he had said it a few nights prior over wine and fresh figs and cheese.  
  
"Then what will I be remembered for? O' great self appointed fortune teller."  
  
"Deceit." A pause, wine was poured. "War mongering."  
  
"Everyone does  _that_."  
  
"But not quite so openly. Debauched."  
  
"Negatives then?"

"The good men do is often buried with their bones."  
  
"While the evil lives on?"  
  
"Just so."  
  
They raised glasses to each other and drank. It was the queerest combination of contentedness and unease Niccolò had ever felt.  
  
"You forgot cruelty."  
  
Niccolò gave a discreet raise of an eyebrow, lips pursed.  
  
"You'll see," Cesare said with a wistful-could-be-coy smile. "Drink up."  
  
And they did. And Niccolò felt that it would be all right.  
  
  
  
  
"Come now, chase the boar with me." The high spirited younger man whipped his head around, laugh losing itself in the trees. Niccolò gave a non-committal reply and pulled himself back into the present and nudged his horse forward, soon over taking the duke.  
  
"Borgia needs a lesson in pride," he replied over his shoulder with a wicked grin.  
  
"I thought the Florentine would be humbled by now!"  
  
Niccolò merely laughed and urged his mount on, glancing back to keep an eye on Cesare. The younger man was pure exuberance and glee with green robes that made him think of the forests around Paris and the dark cold of the north. The eyes were what finished that feeling, he decided as he turned to keep an eye on the boar, the eyes were what always finished the feeling when it came to Cesare.  
  
The boar was felled within minutes and Cesare was humming praises and letting out giggles that were much too young and reminded Niccolò that the duke was only twenty-seven so youth was expected.  
  
"Tell me," he said, catching Cesare by the arm and leading him for a walk as the servants prepared the boar to be taken back to the city. "What are you borrowing our Leonardo for? We've a new church door we want done and Piero wants him back for it."  
  
"Tell me, do you always do as Piero asks?"  
  
"He is my political master."  
  
"He is your master in all ways, I think." The smile was amused and Niccolò scowled in return, too tired to be handling the twists of the conversation. "I am using Leonardo for he does best."

"Art?"  
  
"Hardly, invention, imagination, creation of the impossible since that is what I am trying to do. Create the impossible."  
  
"He's making weapons for you?"  
  
"Of a sort."  
  
Silence. There were birds and insects and Niccolò loved that nature was noisy enough to fill in their conversation. Weapons for a Borgia. And Florence was so close to Imola. So close to Borgia, to Vitellozo, to the  _condottiero_ , to the French army, to the everything that was Italian politics.  
  
"We have an agreement," Niccolò finally said, feeling that something had to be said in that empty, empty space.  
  
"Do we." A sentence, a question – he wasn't sure and Cesare wasn't looking at him so he was fearful.  
  
  
  
  
"How are things proceeding?" Francesco asked, voice low and breath brushing Niccolò's ear. They were hiding in one of the many shadowy churches that filled the gaps and arches of Imola for the bishop wanted to be there but not actually be there, Cesare was not fond of him, after all. So Niccolò found that Francesco was all breathless anticipation with cassock and riding coat wrapped tight and eyes strained.  
  
"Well enough, I suppose." Careful, careful. Cesare was bluffing, after all. "I have spoken to Leonardo."  
  
"And?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
They went silent, a street boy walked by sans cap and with a serious look on his face. Niccolò had the grace to appear concerned for the boy in front of Francesco. The bishop never had approved of such games and if the boy's lover was hiding in a church, all the more condemnation for him, then. Niccolò simply thought it oddly appropriate and truly the only place private. Besides, the bishop had little room to maneuver concerning piety and purity and the sanctity of holy ground.  
  
"He says he can't show me what he's created, that Cesare would know since Cesare knows everything and in Imola is God since he's so omnipresent. People don't fuck without thinking Borgia knows it. Without knowing that Borgia knows it." He stopped, aware that the speech had run on too long and all but ignored Francesco's silent fury. "There's the trinity, Borgia the father, Borgia the son, and Borgia the omnipresent spirit." Life was too short not to pick on Francesco. "There's even the Borgia Madonna, though we're still waiting for the immaculate conception. Though one could argue for the  _Infans Romanus_."  
  
"And who is the Madonna? Lucretia or Borgia-the-father's little thing?"  
  
"Both. Neither. I hadn't thought that far ahead. Whoever sees Gabriel first."  
  
That earned a smile from Francesco so Niccolò knew he had done all right.  
  
"You are a demon," Francesco said at last, taking Niccolò's arm and pulling him farther into the shadows, if it were at possible to be more in the dark than they were already and Niccolò felt that the poetry of the situation was fitting and they could hardly have done better. "But I see why Piero's taken to you, filthy minded both of you are."  
  
"Hardly," he could feel something like annoyance rising, something like anger and Niccolò Machiavelli rarely ever angered. "Piero is far more noble and gifted than I. He simply puts up with me from some misguided notion that I have potential."

The older man brushed aside the comment, the false modesty, face suddenly set in a grim line that reminded the ambassador of gargoyles and French churches and Venetian masks. Florentinian masks were supposed to be gay and lively and bumbling so when they hit you between the ribs with a knife you never would have guessed it. Cunning and coy looks were saved for those that truly had no heart.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 _Marietta, Marie, Mary, Mariana, Madonna, Marietta,_  
  
My Dear Marietta. This is Imola so I cannot write truly and well for Cesare is God and knows all, as I confided in Francesco though he does not believe me. He does not believe me but I know for how else could Cesare know? And Cesare knows everything there is to know except what matters. He knows of Francesca and Piero and you but not of Vitellozo or France or the Signoria. He knows of my heart but not my mind and in the end the former will gladly be sacrificed for the latter. I am a cruel man in that way.  
  
I am writing this letter to you so that I can clear my mind and set my soul at ease for truly it is my soul that matters and not yours for yours will be more ill at ease than ever should you set eyes on this paper. Which you wont since it will have been burnt before even the omnipresent would-be-Prince knows of it. And that is well and good. I am all right with him knowing my heart, but my mind and my soul and my conscience I'd rather him never know. I'd rather him never know because I don't want to know and what he knows he makes sure I know, makes sure I know damn well. Fuck him and his coy smile that is nothing like Piero so all I can think of is Piero.  
  
There is an English boy here who is called Cremuel, Tommaso being the first of his names. He is a bull dog and fights everything that moves including himself. I think I'd take a liking to him if I could get anything out of him beyond a "how d'you do, sir" in horrid Genoese Italian. I told him to go to Florence to learn to speak. He said he would and to learn a few other things since Italy had much to teach and he had much to learn. He is right, of course. And Florence will teach him about smiles, about fearing shadows, about always looking behind you, about not being able to sleep for too many reasons to count, about life as it is and not as it ought to be. He's old enough to understand, I think, though he's still just a boy.  
  
I don't think his name was actually Cremuel but merely what someone dubbed his English name when he came to us and he was content enough to let it be. Should he go to the English court he will make something of himself. The summer of Cesare Borgia will mark him. He will stare at frescoes instead of fists and find an easier way to be.  
  
I am remembering my father and his stiff rule and stiff fist and stiff drink. Wine was never enough for him but he was bright and mostly kind so I think I learned to love him after a fashion. After a very long fashion. It has always taken us Machiavellis a long time to do anything. We're slow learners and damned stubborn when we want to be. Keep that in mind, my dear Marietta, for you are married to one and bearing one. Your life is owned by the Machiavellis now and we don't let go too easily. It's the bastardization of once noble blood, or so I've been told.  
  
Stories. I'm sure there are stories to tell. Lots of them. Stories of this foreign court around this foreign prince in this foreign city. But I can't think of any that would amuse you. Can't think of any that you would want to hear. Because I can't imagine that you'd care to know that Cesare looks at me the same way Tommaso looks at Francesca during the Mass. Looks at me because he knows he will have me, after a fashion. The same as he has everyone. After a fashion. And hopefully I will remember to forget everything when the time comes. I don't think he'd care to be called the wrong name, after all.  
  
You always bore me patiently. Which means you've always suffered. And for that I am sorry. I am sorry for marrying you. I am sorry for leaving you. I am sorry for Francesca and the other girls whose names I can't remember. I am sorry for Cesare. I am sorry for the future. Mea Culpa. I am a sinner. If sinning truly mattered after it all ends, that is.  
  
  
My dear Marietta. I wish you could read this and know and be at ease for you were going to be my salvation but fell just this much short of being the Mary I needed just as I fell this much short of being your Joseph. The child will never be a Joshua, but perhaps that is all right.  
  
  
Yours, as always, with my affection, my attention, but never my love,  
  
Niccolò who wishes, sometimes, that he wasn't a Machiavelli.  
     
  
  
  
  
The girls name was Marie and she looked too much like his own Marie that was Marietta that was his false Madonna for his tastes. Cesare merely smiled that coy, coy, coy, all knowing smile and told him to have fun. That she was a good ride. That she knew what she was doing with a man.  
  
"She was at the French court, lady in waiting to a duchess, but truly attended the duke."  
  
"A pattern is emerging, I see." He said it in monotone and Cesare laughed, grabbing his hand in acknowledgment of the hit. One to one. They were even. "And your Angela? Whatever happened to her?"  
  
"Her husband decided that she needed to see Venice, and Verona, and possibly as far as Vienna."  
  
"Did he now?" He was looking at anything but the demure girl in front of him.      
  
"For her health."  
  
"How much into her term?"  
  
"I don't remember." The younger man paused a delicate pause. "And your Marietta?"  
  
"I remembered to forget," and he said it roughly while grabbing the girl and running from the room. One to two. He should have left the subject of angels and conceptions well enough alone.  
  
  
  
  
Piero wrote to him. The November cold was beginning to set in and Niccolò was readying himself for a long, cruel winter. Cesare brought the winter here, he was sure. Perhaps that was why he would be remembered as cruel.  
  
He wrote to say that Marietta was in good health and that the baby kicked. Forgive him, but he had to write it. Niccolò, Niccolò, you are a father. He could hear that warm, warm voice murmuring it over the wine same as he had murmured well wishes and soft jokes before he left for the God forsaken world that was Imola. Niccolò, Niccolò, you must accept it, you must embrace it. Never fight it, fight it and they will be bitter and you will be bitter and when you are old and almost gone you will regret it.  
  
He wrote to say that Francesca was well, that Tommaso was well and in one sentence so Niccolò knew they were still whatever it was that they were. He wrote to say that the wine grapes were well, that his estates were reaping a profit, that the Florin was holding steady, that the factions had died down for the moment, that everything was well. But not that Piero Soderini was well and so Niccolò knew that he wasn't.  
  
  
  
It was an early dusk that day and Niccolò felt the need to stretch his legs while the fading light made it easy. The gardens around the palace were something sweet and pleasant and much like the gardens in Florence only less colourful, less vibrant, less fragrant simply based on the fact that they weren't the gardens in Florence.  
  
Leonardo found him with robes pulled up about his neck and ears and cap shoved forward over his forehead letting all know he was brooding and not to be disturbed on pain of death via verbal evisceration. Leonardo took the sight in, grinned cheerfully, and barged on forward. He would be forgiven by the moody younger man, just as he was always forgiven by the moody younger man. He was, he found, a very forgivable person.  
  
"Things are brewing," he opened with. Niccolò glared in response. Things were always brewing. "I thought you'd want to know."  
  
"Vitellozo," muttered darkly and Leonardo gave a sage nod. "Yes, yes, we know."  
  
"Do you?"  
  
"Cesare rides the tides of fortune and Vitellozo is breaking those tides, ruining those fortunes. A Pazzi Easter Sunday for the new Medici that will never be a Medici."  
  
"Nor a Julius or Gaius or Marius, though he wishes he were."  
  
"No," Niccolò was firmly shaking his head. His body was rejecting the very notion. "An Augustus, a Trajan, a Nero even. In his own way."  
  
"In his own fashion," said with a chuckle and Niccolò allowed it to pass. "But I think he wishes he were a Julius."  
  
"Julius had potential to be a republican, to be a prince, to be something unheard of yet marvelous but he chose the earthy and mundane. Cesare has potential to be a prince and only that. He is hardly the stuff of Gaius Julius."  
  
"And Vitellozo hardly the stuff of Brutus?"  
  
"Neither Brutus' – the king slayer nor the tyrant slayer. More a Cassius. More a something I can't put my finger on but it's disgusting, regardless. But you have more news?"  
  
"I have news that makes me not able to sleep at night."  
  
"You have a life that makes you not able to sleep at night."  
  
Leonardo didn't respond and Niccolò apologized, making sure his eyes showed that he meant it because he found he did.  
  
"But I can only tell you about Vitellozo because Borgia will be telling you of Vitellozo tonight, after dinner."  
  
"I will be meeting him after dinner?" A low whistle. "My, my, the things you know my dear Leonardo."  
  
"The things I wish I didn't know, actually, my dear Niccolò. Now. I am an old man and must get myself inside where there isn't a breeze to hurt my joints."

Niccolò found he had nothing to say but a muttered thank you as he watched grey hair disappearing amongst fragrant, dying flowers in a colourful, dying garden. Cesare Borgia was bringing the winter and he was the reason these flowers would die.


	4. A History of Caesar

He remembered hearing a story, once. He, Tommaso, Piero and Biagio had been in the countryside and Tommaso was lamenting the loss of yet another True Love. Biagio would interject with "well what did you expect you asshole?" and Niccolò remembered why he both hated and loved them. Piero had been musing on something and had pulled ahead, mind elsewhere else with eyes a dark, dark brown that was almost black.   
  
"Is all well in Casa Soderini?" He had asked, nudging his horse next to the older man's and giving as affable a smile as he could give. Piero's spirits could plunge deep and dark but Niccolò had discovered that he had the happy talent of lifting them back out.   
  
"Indeed." Distracted. So very distracted. And he remained aloof as Niccolò prattled on about Francesca and Francesco and Antonio and Antonia. "Have you ever thought of poison?" He asked suddenly when there was a lull.   
  
"You mean the Eucharist? I think about it every day I don't take it." And he had meant it despite the fact that these were still the days of Savonarola and the cult of the Ancients and the cult of antipathy and the cult of cynicism were all long dead and burned and buried. Burned and buried with the beautiful paintings and books that had once held such strong sway.   
  
"I shall ignore that, for your health. And I was thinking of a poison made within a boar's body that takes months to work and tastes like water. You drink it now and in six months you'll be dead of it."   
  
"Ghastly. A Medici product?"   
  
"A Borgia product."   
  
"A who?"   
  
For Alexander VI wasn't Alexander VI yet (still an unknown cardinal with an eye for the top job) and Lucretia and Cesare and Giulono were not yet born and Borgia was just an Italian bastardization of a Spanish name that meant nothing.   
  
"Borgia. A cardinal in Rome."  
  
"Cardinals are always on about poison. Poison and treason and heresy and stakes and oh dear, the Germans are protesting what are we to do? Shall we have an orgy?"   
  
"The Germans are protesting?"   
  
"When are the Germans not protesting?"   
  
"I thought that was the job of the French."   
  
Niccolò shrugged and had said that if the church knew what was good for her (and she doesn't) she'd shape up. Yes, yes, Wycliff was gone and Jan Hus was dead, and maybe Bohemia got away and all in all things are as they should be but he was willing to bet his life on the Germans being the first to do something about it. They were too much the stuff of merchants to care for the Church. And Erasmus was very popular there, after all. And where Erasmus is popular and Jan Hus was once preached...the sentence was never finished but Piero could well guess and didn't care to comment.   
  
"I was just wondering what it would be like, to die of Borgia poisoning. You strangle to death."   
  
"Like drowning then, but worse."   
  
The older man nodded and went silent, horse moving ahead of Niccolò's and the ambassador who was only a secretary then, knew better than to follow. 

  
  
  
"You're having a moment," Cesare was amiable and smiling and being as charming as he could. Urbino had revolted but he wasn't concerned for he claimed he remembered how to take it.   
  
"I was reminiscing." Niccolò offered hoping with a discreet hope that Cesare would ask no more and turn the discussion to Vitellozo and Orsini and Fregaso and all the others who hate him and wished him dead but of whom he had no fear. No visible fear. Niccolò always made sure to remember that Cesare was an actor.   
  
"About?" The curious look.   
  
"Religion. Of sorts."   
  
"Ah, I never took you for a religious man."   
  
"That's because I'm not." He paused, picked at the cuffs of his robe. "I'm not but I am. I'm a Florentine and we all were when Savonarola was there and we were all pagans when Lorenzo was there and now we're republicans and our religion is our state and we worship freedom and Soderini."   
  
"And does your Piero like the worship?"   
  
"Yes and no." He turned away so Cesare wouldn't be able to see the truth he knew was written so clearly on his face. The truth that Piero hated it and wanted nothing more than to be a virtuous Florentine and a good man and help his country but in helping his country as the first citizen meant being everything but virtuous and good. Private values were public evils.  
  
"Have you heard from the Signoria?" The subject change was a kindness. Niccolò found himself thankful for Cesare's understanding despite the fact that the duke truly didn't understand. Some things only Florentines could understand.   
  
"Yes and no," he said it with a smile and Cesare laughed, saying that he was a true civil servant. Straight answers, Niccolò replied, were for the weak and the faint of heart. "They are hesitant, they are unsure of the outcome, they are unsure of your position. In regards to Vitellozo and his allies."   
  
"My position! They question  _my position_!" The fuse was lit and Cesare railed on.   
  


  
  
Francesco bit his lip worriedly as Niccolò finished the letter, face as angry as he had ever seen it. There were crease lines he didn't remember being on the younger man's face before, creases that were ten years early.   
  
"He will win in this." Niccolò growled it out over ink and quills and paper. Francesco merely bobbed his head and frowned. "He has the advantage."   
  
"Which is?"   
  
"That he is alone," the younger man looked up. There was an ink smear on his chin and down his left cheek. Eyes were so cold it was horrid. "He can act quickly and decisively. The element of surprise is on his side, not theirs."   
  
"But they have a greater number."   
  
Hands flew up in frustration and an ink well was spilled; the floor stained. "Fine! They have more! So does Florence and has that made us strong? Has that made us powerful? We need him and must grab him while he still thinks he needs us."   
  
Silence. Francesco reached forward and took the letter, ignoring the grey hair that fell in his face, in fact almost thankful for it for it meant he didn't have to meet Niccolò's gaze.   
  


  
  
"When I was a boy I remember running to my uncle's house on the feast of St. Michael," he glanced over to Cesare to see if he was listening. The younger man was brooding and nodding and was there but not there so Niccolò decided to continue. "I was ten, or thereabouts. And there were rioters in the city. Rioters yelling about il popolo and libertas and all the usual nonsense that rioters yell about and I wanted to know why. My father, for all his faults, was a good citizen and so stuck by the Medici. My father said that the rioters were to go to hell; my uncle said that the torture chamber was close enough so my father was right in an essence. I didn't understand what he had meant at the time."   
  
"Did you see anyone die?"  
  
"I was five when I first saw death and understood. Or understood as well as any five year could. I knew they were not going to move again and that I would never see them again."   
  
"Who was it?"   
  
"An aunt. She died of something my uncle couldn't afford the medicine for. Or perhaps she died of something there wasn't any medicine for. Either way I was there when she was given last unction and watched her gurgle and spew bile until she lay still and my uncle's face went even more so." He eyed the wine, still remembering stories told by Piero. Stories of poison, of dark nights, of Spanish blood being hotter than Italian, of ruthless smiles and drowning deaths. "And you?"  
  
"I was eleven. A cardinal died."   
  
"That old? I would have thought younger."   
  
It earned an interested look from the duke and Niccolò answered it with the shrug he learned in France and the smile from Venice.   
  
"My father had invited him to dinner. It was during the first course, died of heart failure."   
  
"Did he now?"   
  
Cesare grinned and patted Niccolò's arm, "come, come, I believed your stories. It's only fair you believe mine."   
  
"But mine were true," a pointed look.   
  
"Some of them were true. The rioters didn't happen, you don't mention the Medici unless you have to or unless your Piero is involved. Then you will expound for hours."   
  
"I don't know what you're suggesting." He tried to play coy, to make it lighter, to make it what it wasn't. Tried but Cesare wasn't having any of it and merely shook his head. No, no, that would not do, he was saying, that would not do at all. Tell me of Louis and Il Magnifico and Boticelli and the Monk. Tell me of Florence, Cesare asked. Tell me of France, of Venice, of Milan - so that I may better understand you. Tell me stories that are true, that happened, that are earthy and full of you and no one else. Maybe your Piero, if you insist. Though, Cesare said with a laugh, I'm not fond of him, for obvious reasons.   
  


  
  
There was a paper jammed into Ovid when he returned from one of the too many meetings with Cesare and council. There were rumblings in Urbino. More rumblings, that is, apart from the usual and always-have-been rumblings. And Rome. Rome after Cesare's father may not be as congenial as it is now and the would-be-prince would have to contend with that. And Florence? Florence just smiled and murmured consent and said "I'm so very sorry, we cannot make any firm promises at the moment, perhaps within the week…" and Cesare let it be though not happily.   
  
It was a sketch of a machine. A machine with a man inside with a gun attached to the front and would be able to withstand fire power. Metal and wheels and flintlock and Niccolò thought it madness but since he was a good Florentine citizen he embraced it anyhow.   
  
"This is what he wants?" He found the artist, who was more inventor than anything, in what had been termed "the lair" and served as Leonardo's study, workshop, art room and more. Niccolò was under the impression that the man only left when Cesare summoned him and when he was hungry to sniff out food at odd hours of the morning.   
  
"One of the many," a cheerful smile and an erratic wave of his hands. "I've more. I think I could possibly manage to get humans to fly."   
  
"Madness," whispered, but with amusement and kindness. He knew Leonardo was used to the proclamations but becoming inured to something doesn't mean it hurts less. "And I am assuming that the duke will be showing me drawings of this tonight? After supper perhaps?"  
  
"Perhaps," the grey head was bowed over more paper. A woman was slowly emerging. "Do you want anything? I'm taking offers. Your charming wife perhaps?"   
  
"No. Thank you." He carefully placed the sketch of the strange contraption away as Leonardo looked up with something like understanding in his gaze. Niccolò detested it so made sure to laugh and be gay. So long as he was witty, so long as he was happy, charming, no one would ask, no one would understand.   
  
"How about yourself? Would you like a portrait done?"   
  
Eyes were appearing on the page, a square jaw, thin lips, crooked nose-; he turned away before Leonardo could finish.   
  
"No. Thank you. I was here to ask your advice on a matter."  
  
"No."   
  
"Pardon?"   
  
"You will regret it, everyone regrets it I've noticed."   
  
"Regrets what?"   
  
Another fluttery wave of the hand and the older man turned away, rummaging about for something. Niccolò watched with a patient look, content to let the artist be as eccentric as he'd like.   
  
"Borgia. Everyone regrets Borgia." Those eyes turned to him and were far too old, far too knowing for the ambassador to be comfortable. He suddenly wished himself back in Florence, back even with Marietta, with Francesca, watching Tommaso woo his former mistress, things were easier in Florence. There were rules and people followed them and even when broken they were still understandable. Still comprehensible. Imola was a different beast and he was finding it all distasteful. Spanish blood, he decided, was the reason.   
  
"I was thinking of Florence and forming an alliance with him. My political masters are worried about Urbino and the recent rebellion and Vitellozo and his allies. Do you think Borgia will come out well?"   
  
"I do not think anything. But as you said to the Bishop Francesco, Cesare Borgia is alone and has everything to loose. That is quite the motivator I have come to find. For those that care, that is. Don't be daft and hope they will all kill each other. They wont. Now, I think the duke wants to see you. Don't do anything stupid."   
  
"I shall keep that in mind," he glanced down at the paper jutting out from between the pages of his book. "And thank you."   
  
"You should have your portrait done, something for the world to remember you by."   
  
"My memory, I think, will be best captured in another way."   
  
"If you mean your writing I think you'd best choose a different course. All philosophers regret writing anything down after they see the way people butcher their meaning. Look at Plato, Aristotle, Cicero-; you're a learned man, you understand."   
  
And Niccolò did but found he had more pressing matters to worry about than his legacy post-mortem. It was not his place in the world to worry about it for he was not a prince, not a duke, not a first citizen and so the telos of his life was not the telos of Cesare's or Piero's or Piero di Lorenzo di Piero di Cosimo's. His was something else, though what exactly, he wasn't sure. 

  
  
  
Cesare wanted to tell him a story. Have you heard of Prestor Jon? He asked with a bland smile and glittering eyes. Niccolò nodded and wrapped his cloak about him, the winter chill was beginning to arrive and he suspected that Cesare felt all the more at home in it despite his cold bloodedness.   
  
"Everyone has heard of the illusive Prestor Jon," he said with a supple shrug. "Are you thinking of searching for him?"   
  
"Perhaps," the younger slid his arm through Niccolò's and led him deeper into the garden, away from the eyes in the walls that were windows through which people who knew too little watched them. "Leonardo said that Prestor Jon was inside us all so perhaps searching for him wont be as difficult as venturing to the east."   
  
"Or much harder," but he refrained from saying more for Cesare was not a man to concern himself with himself. Or the Himself that was spiritual, that was deeper than the latest pretty face and quick run at power and glory.   
  
"I met a man once, who said he had been to Prestor Jon's court."   
  
"Was his name Baudolino?"   
  
"No, why?"   
  
"So he had no gift for prophesy, do continue."   
  
"His name was Niklaus. Niklaus Makaricheva. I suppose what he said may have been false, he was a story teller after all. He told me that he had been to see Prestor Jon and the court was on a mountain surrounded by a sea that was full of emerald fish and dolphins of sapphires. He is a goodly prince who is kind to all and through his kindness and perfect Christian brotherhood has managed to convert the infidel who surround him."   
  
"Master Makaricheva needs a new story."   
  
"And there are maidens whose hair is gold like the sun and whose voices are beautiful and would sing of the east and the wind and the colours of the world though they had never seen it. They had the gift of sight without seeing."   
  
"Yet no observation if they sang of a beautiful and perfect world."   
  
"Leonardo said that they had the gift of hope."   
  
Niccolò opened his mouth to reply but found he couldn't. Some things weren't worth the time to contradict, others were worth too much to contradict. He wasn't sure which one the gift of hope was.   
  
"I would like to meet this story teller of yours, this Niklaus Makaricheva." It was said with a coy smile and irony but Cesare either didn't notice or chose not to notice and simply smiled and nodded and smiled some more and said that Niccolò had already met him, he was sure of it. He was the patron saint of Florence though the Florentines didn't know it.   
  
"Mars is our patron saint," Niccolò muttered as they parted. "I am reminded of it every day that I live." 

  
  
  
  
Niccolò found Francesco in his rooms reading Livy. The well worn pages slipped through the bishop's fingers as easily as the well worn thighs of the woman he had been with the night before.   
  
"There was a Roman emperor, once," Francesco began as Niccolò poured them wine. "Who had the world but wanted the moon as well and in reaching for it he fell. He fell sixty or so times and the last blow was the worst for it came from a friend." He looked up to meet Niccolò's steady, steady, I-know-this-story, gaze. "Is Cesare in good health?"   
  
"Yes, though I think time is up for Cassius. Come back in two weeks, there ought to be a show."   
  
"I hate it when you're dispassionate, it reminds me of Cosimo."   
  
"I can't say that I'm sorry."


	5. An Unlikely Prince

_My dear Piero,_  
  
 _I should not be writing this to you so I am not. I spend my days thinking of you as something else. As something you are not. As a Templar before the king of France and His Holiness slaughtered them, as a Hospitlar, as a warrior on horseback or some blithe youth with ruddy cheeks and hair dark brown as it once was. But you are too much flesh and bones for me to think of these fantasies for long so I find myself pondering the mysteries of Florence and of your house with its fine wooden floors and beautiful frescoes in the chapel and your handsome face with that smile that is so very much you and your poor wife who wished for children but God, in his glory and cruelty, saw fit to deny her._  
  
 _They made you gonfaloniere for life because of that. Because you have no children and because you have a kind smile and a sad wife. All men who lead Florence must have kind smiles and sad wives. It's the Medici precedent and yet I find that I am of no mind to jest about the past. Instead, I find myself wishing I was home and wishing I could send all the things I write. The Signoria complain of my lack of letters and Biagio, in his wisdom, tells me to be less blunt. Yet, I can follow no instructions. It's not in my nature, you see._  
  
 _I write letters. I write stories and fairy tales and spin parables and find adjectives and adverbs for things I wish I had and use the wrong pronoun for elle should be il but to use il is to be burned and fuck I hate this glorious republic we call home. I am not a man who enjoys trifles like love. I'd rather make a grand thing of it. You know me well enough to know that. I haven't written sonnets yet but that is because I haven't found a friend who will read them and understand that was is written is a code for everything I have just explained._  
  
 _Cesare Borgia has broken a part of me through knowing me in that he knows about you and so knows me. And damnit, he knew me before I knew myself. It hurts a man, to be known before he himself has figured it all out. He guessed after our first meeting when I said that I had come from the Signoria but truly Piero Soderini sent me. I must have smiled as I said your name. I must have had something in my eyes. My face must have betrayed me. My ever smiling, never changing, thin lipped, hawked nosed, cropped haired, square jawed face. My face that betrays nothing betrayed me. It broke me. I will write about this in years to come and men will think that I am cruel and so be it. Cesare Borgia taught me to be cruel._  
  
 _I wrote to Marietta about a boy named Cremuel and that the summer of Cesare Borgia would mark him and that he would find an easier way to be. I should have written that to you for you would have understood that Cremuel might have been me and that I will never be Niccolò Machiavelli as I once was. I am Niccolò Machiavelli who no longer laughs unless it's a cruel joke, who no longer smiles unless there's something of the winter in it, who no longer believes in the ideal of Florence. The republic will fall. It will not be to our Borgia Prince. But it will fall. Cesare will die some inglorious death and you will – dear God in your heaven forgive me – you too will fall and I will fall because of this letter and everything meant by it. And Florence will fall. There will be nights and no days and we will be enslaved as we once were. I have just broken a promise I made to myself and to my father._  
  
 _So be it._  
  
 _I am cruel for writing this and burning it. Piero Soderini, please forgive me, I am an unlikely Prince in my cruelty. Piero Soderini, please, on the night you fall, on the night you die, say a prayer for me. It will be the only prayer that has ever truly mattered._  
  
 _When he comes for me I will think of you._  
  
  
He burned the letter and drank wine and wrote a new one. It was to the Signoria and the contents were brutal in their bluntness but he was too far gone to care. 

  
  
  
The signoria were holding out and Piero was begging them to accept Niccolò's propositions. He knew the situation better than anyone. Francesco even put in a good word. Said something about two weeks being all they had to decide. But old men don't like change, don't like listening to one who is twenty or so years younger than them, don't like the swift merciless actions of the child who was given too much power, don't like how close those camp fires of the army are, don't like how quickly Urbino falls and falls and falls, don't like much and Piero is tired of pushing them.   
  
"You will have to make do. Can you say that we are for him but without putting it on paper?" Francesco asked. It had been two weeks and Vitellozo and his men were coming for a state visit. They have been forgiven by the would-be-prince and were to be taken back into the fold. Cesare said that one must show humility and mercy upon occasions. Leonardo simply gave a grim bark of a laugh and said he would be in his work shop should anyone need him. He was too old for this.   
  
"I've been saying that but he wants firm proof. He wants a treaty signed and ready. Vitellozo is without arms, for the love of God and his son and the blasted holy spirit what more does Piero want?"   
  
Francesco was about to say "you. Home and safe because Cesare is a wild boar and is friendly one moment only to maul you the next and sometimes diplomatic immunity doesn't matter". But instead he says that Piero wants what Niccolò wants which is a treaty but it's the other members, don't you understand? He is not a Cosimo, not a Lorenzo – he will not bend them against their will and the will of the people.   
  
"Times when I miss the Medicis," Niccolò replied with some amount of impatience and disgust. Francesco's missive to Florence simply said that the ambassador would do what he could for the greater glory of the republic etc. etc. etc.   


  
  
It was at night when Cesare found him. He was asleep, curled with sheets kicked off and night breeze on bare skin. Bare skin that was pale from the lack of sun, the lack of riding for the air was too cold and the world was slowly freezing. He shivered and wrapped arms around knees.   
  
Cesare was the black shadow he had been when they first met. Black shadow and fiery eyes that burned, burned, burned holes into his own eyes, into his own mind, his own will – heart and soul and everything else had long since been incinerated by Savonarola, by Francesca, by his father, by Piero, by Lorenzo, by Polizianno and his poetry, by Florence and her everything.   
  
The clothes the duke wore were dark purples and dark blues that bled to black night and made him want to curl into himself and whisper about half remembered dreams that offered only half remembered comforts of a half remembered bed with a forgotten body of one of his many forgotten girls and their forgotten warmth.    
  
So he closed his eyes and parted his lips and let shadows of stories and prayers and memories escape for this was a dream and Cesare, the real Cesare, not this Cesare that was not Cesare, would never know what he said here. Would never know that as a boy he fell in a construction site and cut his knees up badly and that there were still scars on them though he had been nine at the time. Would never know that he used to put honey in the Bible after Mass so the Holy Father wouldn't be able to open it the next day. Would never know that he used to carve his initials into the leg of his bed so his memory would be imprinted somewhere, so he would never disappear completely from the history of the world, that an NM would always be present.   
  
"Mea culpa," he finally sighed, blankets around him and warmth though this was just a dream. "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."   
  
"Mine as well," came a tired reply. "Though I try not to think about it too much."   


  
  
He decided to dream the next day away so he ensconced himself in the library and read Pliny and Plato and Catullus and Petrarch (his old friend). He wished himself back to Rome – the imperial and the republic for both were glorious and he was in a mood to wish everything glorious. Everything glorious and mighty and colourful and as beautiful as the girls sang it in Cesare's never finished tale. Cesare was not a story teller, Niccolò decided, but he was all right with that.   
  
Vitellozo was still to come, even in his dreams that were too much during the day to actually be dreams. Vitellozo rode into his mind as Cassius and Brutus and Marcilius and all the others so that it was a feast of the Lupercal and all Latin though he only wanted to hear Tuscan. Tuscan whispered by il Magnifico who had such a way of purring everything, Tuscan imparted by Piero who could make the language sound as if it was ripped from his mouth and hammered with teeth into one's mind, Tuscan grittily muttered by Francesco whose lungs couldn't quite manage it and were better suited to the blasted Latin that had taken hold. Church men were all the same and he could understand the magnificent Lorenzo's disillusionment with them all. Piero still held onto the faint hope that one day it would change, one day someone would come around to sense and reform it. Grumblings of Czechs and Englishmen would only get her so far, after all. A firm hand was needed to guide her, so Niccolò had suggested a German and Piero replied that he should know better than to blaspheme.   
  
With Vitellozo rode the other nameless, faceless, fearless men who would rather die for attempted glory than simper and crawl to it on their stomachs. In the end he decided to place his shirt on the Borgia for they are strong enough to be remembered.

  
  
  
Francesco said he looked dull and Niccolò said it had been a week.  
  
"A week?"   
  
"Since a dream. I had hoped it might happen again," but he said it with a level voice and seeming complacence so Francesco didn't know if he was telling the truth or not. A dispatch made its way from the younger man to the older filled with etc's, etc's, etc's, ditto, ditto, ditto. He was growing tired of delivering them just as Niccolò was growing tired of writing them and Piero of reading them.   
  
Snow was threatening on the horizon, it was December, and the impass would soon pass.   


  
  
He found Leonardo in his shop making men fly like birds and swim like fish and battlements fall as if they were mere children's blocks. He was a flurry of excitement, of ideas, of "oh wait, wait that isn't perfect, must hold on Signore till it is perfect and that means not moving for the love of the Eucharist, Cremuel!"   
  
The boy who was Tommaso Cremuel straightened his back and held out his arms again as Leonardo measured. There was silence for a moment, not even the papers dared to rustle, the fire crackle, and Niccolò found he was holding his breath lest the shift of air ruin everything. Then there was a snap and everything shifted back into place as Leonardo stood back nodding to himself, pleased. Cremuel sat down with a heavy sigh that only boys could heave.   
  
The artist beckoned him over with a smile, curious, wondering what the ambassador could want for it wasn't evening and they reserved their intellect for the dying hours of the day.   
  
"I received a letter from Marietta," he opened by way of a greeting, an apology for his behavior, for his sudden breaking of barely formed habits. "I haven't written to her."   
  
"You should."   
  
"I know. What would I say?"   
  
"That you are well, that I am well – I like to be mentioned in letters, it makes me feel that I might live longer if I am – that the Borgia-prince is well, that diplomacy takes longer than it ought to and so on and so forth. You're the writer, not I."   
  
"I sometimes wonder about that," but he didn't elaborate and Leonardo decided to let it be. "I've often been told that had I known myself I would never have married."   
  
"Had men truly known themselves this world would be very different." He stopped, the same lack of elaboration and Niccolò found himself smiling. "There, that's better. I had worried that Piero's Niccolò was gone and Cesare's had taken his place. But that said, best not to regret things, no matter how hard they may be. I've always been a Florentine at heart, no matter how hard I run from her." He tapped Niccolò's nose with a congenial look that reminded the younger man of his grandfather. "You are much the same, I think." 

  
  
  
_Biagio._   
  
_Well, asshole, I know you've been wanting a letter so here goes my ill advised attempt at one. Yes, yes, I'm sure Jocapo has kept the farm in order and Marietta is fine and Francesca is whelping (whose whelp?) and everything is as it ought to be. I'm none too surprised. Florence changes governments once every four years but nothing else changes. You understand, you denizen of every sleazy tavern and whorehouse in the city. If nothing has changed there then nothing has changed to begin with._   
  
_You're a little fucker at times and you know it. I don't care about Tommaso's whelp (assuming that the child is his and not mine or her husband's or some other man's), I want to know what is happening with the Signoria. You are my friend, you attend the meetings, you occasionally grace Piero's house with your presence and you tell me nothing of that! I am a political animal – tell me about politics, not farms! Farms or whelps._   
  
_I've a conflict over a Gaius Julius a Madonna and a Rock-Upon-Whom-I-Build-My-Church and I am loath to really go into the details. The stories aren't funny ones, I am not at a loss nor taken advantage of, so I think I ought to keep them to myself. I only relate entertainment for that is my self appointed role. We have no courts with jesters so we must make do with what is given to us._   
  
  
_Your Friend who Really Wishes You'd Send Actual News,_   
  
_Niccolò, whom you call "mother fucker", Machiavelli._   


  
  
The snow fell. The men were without soldiers, without arms, without help and everything went as smooth as silk. They were locked in rooms now and the next time snow would fall on them it would be falling upon dead bodies.   
  
They were on horseback when they took them, Vitellozo came with a stunned look on his face. Cesare was black and blue and gold against a white back drop; it was picturesque. He looked ready to be painted but Leonardo called in sick so it was Niccolò painting with words. Cesare had said he should write about it, said it with a sly grin and hands where they should not have been and Niccolò could feel the statue behind him jutting into his back. There would be bruises. But when Cesare did anything he bruised. It was his way.   
  
Cesare was lying on his stomach now, feeling a brush on his back and cool ink blacker than anything he'd ever worn. Niccolò was humming as he wrote, a song Cesare felt he ought to know but couldn't put his finger on.   
  
"It's a Miserere," Niccolò said when the younger man finally asked. "And you ought to know it, being a former cardinal."   
  
Silence after Cesare laughed and Niccolò told him, for the love of the Eucharist, hold still. It was a good phrase, he wanted to use it more often. Piero would enjoy it before tutting in a mock disapproving manner.   
  
"What are you writing?" Muffled into the pillow, the brush was on the base of the younger man's spine making him shiver.   
  
"A treatise."   
  
"About what?"   
  
"Fate. And how one shouldn't rely on fortune alone. It's a folly."   
  
"But when fortune has been kind?"   
  
"Accept it, be gay, but still prepare for the worst. Then you won't be taken by surprise."   
  
"Are you trying to tell me something."   
  
Niccolò's brush dipped along the curve of his arse and back thighs. He hummed a Miserere and Cesare knew he should keep his peace. It was a holy moment.   
  
  
  
 _The Duke Valentino had returned from Lombardy, where he had been to clear himself with the King of France from the calumnies which had been raised against him by the Florentines concerning the rebellion of Arezzo and other towns in the Val di Chiana, and had arrived at Imola, whence he intended with his army to enter upon the campaign against Giovanni Bentivogli, the tyrant of Bologna: for he intended to bring that city under his domination, and to make it the head of his Romagnian duchy._  
  
 _These matters coming to the knowledge of the Vitelli and Orsini and their following, it appeared to them that the duke would become too powerful..._

  
  
Leonardo declared that it needed a painfully long and obvious title. Niccolò agreed and they asked the foreign boy Cremuel what he thought.   
  
"I don't know 'bout you m'lords, but perhaps something like 'How the Bastard Borgia killed and butchered and generally made mince meat of those guys he didn't like'?"   
  
"You daft boy," Leonardo laughed and hit Cremuel upside the head. Short brown hair would stay ruffled for the rest of the day.   
  
"The idea is good, if a bit blunt." Niccolò paused, a delicate, mocking frown. "'The Manner in Which the Duke Valentino Dispatched Obnoxious and Disliked Men Whom He Had Made the Horrid Mistake of Trusting'?"   
  
"Cesare wouldn't let you out of here alive if you called it that."   
  
"Fair enough. Take out the mistake of trusting bit, 'The Manner in Which the Duke Valentino Dispatched Obnoxious and Disliked Men so All who Heard would Take Heed and Not Piss Him Off'?"   
  
"Not quite subtle enough."   
  
"I thought you wanted it long and obvious?"   
  
Leonardo laughed and nodded, reaching out for a scrap of paper he scribbled something down, passing it back to Niccolò with a satisfied look on his face. "That will do, I think."   
  
"A Description of the Methods Adopted by the Duke Valentino when Murdering Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, the Signor Pagolo, and the Duke di Gravina Orsini?" Niccolò paused, reading it over again then shrugged. "That will do. Painfully long and obvious. Though I still prefer the word 'dispatched' to 'murdered'."   
  
A lofty wave of the hand from Leonardo, "details."   
  
"That's where the devil is." 

  
  
  
Cremuel was sent back to the workshop with express instructions not to touch anything lest he feel the severe desire to die a horrible death at a very young age. The boy laughed, said Leonardo couldn't hurt a fly let alone him, and lopped off with the awkward gate of a self-aware youth.   
  
"Where did you find him?" Niccolò asked as they slipped into the library, admiring flakes hitting the window sill.   
  
"He's from England, or somewhere over there. He did me a favor in Milan and I'm returning it by taking him on for a bit, teaching him my craft (though he's a horrible artist). He's smart, quick, he'll do well for himself." They found themselves wandering amongst dusty shelves in fading light. Niccolò was remembering a dinner spent sitting between Piero and Tommaso and those jokes – did he do the dirty deed with his sister? The little fucker fucks. He managed to crack a smile, they had been so wrong yet so right and he wanted to tell Piero that he would always remember that dinner since it was the last one where the three of them had sat down and it had not ended in blows.   
  
"I'm thinking of leaving," Leonardo said after an appropriate amount of silence. He seemed older in the dim line, more wrinkled, more grey, more tired. "Cremuel was right, in a way. I can't hurt a fly, let alone a person."   
  
"You find making war machines distasteful?"   
  
"Intellectually of course not. I like to know if my inventions will work, it's a pleasant feeling, knowing you're right. But I'm an artist, Niccolò, an inventor, a man. And in being a man I try and do my best not to be a monster. Cesare is friends with Florence now but as soon as the wind is right our walls will fall like all the others. I don't want to be the cause of that, of us becoming another Urbino."   
  
"I think I understand."   
  
"You are much the same as I, Niccolò. You're a writer, a philosopher, a man," he stopped. Fingers resting on Suetonius. "But sometimes I fear you are too much of the formers and not enough of the latter."   
  
"Indeed?" A pause. Niccolò was watching the dust resettle on the books. "Sometimes I fear it's the other way around. Borgia and I are much the same. I just rationalize it better, control my impulses more."   
  
"Then you're an artist as well."   
  
"Am I? I suppose I am. After a fashion."   
  
"Always after a fashion."


	6. Interring the Good with Their Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alrighty. She be done. 
> 
> I am actually thinking of taking this summer and reworking it so any feedback/suggestions etc would be beyond amazing. 
> 
> Otherwise, in the wise words of Machiavelli, Sod Off I'm Done. 
> 
> (not really. thank you all for getting this far. it means a lot.)

"He will invade Tuscany," Francesco said slowly, softly. He was reading the latest dispatch and Niccolò nodded, arms crossed and face severe. Francesco was pure disbelief till his whispered words ran over Vitellozo and the others. "A massacre," he said, looking up. "You witnessed it?"  
  
"I witnessed the taking, the smooth words, the brilliant deceit. Some say poison, some say strangulation, some say both."   
  
"And you?"   
  
"They're dead and that's the important bit." He reached forward, plucking the paper from Francesco's open fingers. They were smudged with dirt from the ride. He looked exhausted, looked as if he hadn't slept in weeks, in months, in years. And perhaps he hadn't, perhaps he would lie awake after the women had gone and watch the shadows stretch long on the ceiling before shortening in honor of the sun. Or perhaps he closed his eyes and dreamt but did not sleep.   
  
"You want a treaty? With such a man?"   
  
"Florence needs him now more than he needs Florence. We cajoled him with kind words when he was alone, when he was bluffing, when he was hoping for yet fearing the fall of Urbino. But now, now he wants exact measures, he wants words on paper, he wants more than vague promises."   
  
"Did you hear about Cardinal Orsini?"   
  
"That is not an answer."   
  
Francesco waved him aside and took a seat, collapsing, a sinking bag of bones.   
"He was arrested by the most Holy Father and thrown into jail, his mother was left on the streets and all his goods taken." That was why he was tired, Niccolò decided. That was why he was exhausted and hadn't slept since mid-December. Florentines love the Orsini because of Lorenzo de' Medici and Florentines hate the Orsini because of Lorenzo de' Medici and so many lose no sleep over their fates and many lose all their sleep. Francesco was clearly the latter. Niccolò wondered if he had ever met Clarissa, had ever laid eyes on the long suffering Orsini-Medici wife. Maybe that was why he was sympathetic.   
  
"Was he?"   
  
"His Holiness wants his Holy Son to aid his brother in suppressing the last of the Orsini and Colonna. We've been too concerned with Tuscany and forgot Rome."   
"Rome was never our concern," but as he said it he knew it wasn't true. That Rome was Florence's concern just as all of Italy was. As much as Italians hated each other they hated true foreigners more. Though perhaps that was why the Borgia were so successful; they were foreign yet Italian for they were Italian in their ways, in their political manners and dealings and cruelty. They were Italian and foreign and no one knew quite what to do with them. Except Francesco, Niccolò reasoned. Francesco would run them through and do it in the name of mother church and mother liberty and the people.  _Il popolo. Il popolo. Il popolo._  
  
"We'll send Iacopo. I hope you're satisfied."   
  
"I am," he smiled, Francesco glowered more. "Tell him to bring his dulcet voice, he'll need it."   
  
"The duke is persuaded based on voice?"   
  
"It certainly helps. Voice and personality."   
  
"And the quality of bawdy jokes one has."   
  
They grinned and Niccolò was glad that whatever had gone wrong was worked out. Francesco wasn't the worst, he decided. Far from it. And he knew where to go at night. 

  
  
  
Iacopo arrived with only a flourish he could bring. He purred and soothed and stroked the situation and was everything that was charming in a Medici without being a Medici and Cesare seemed to understand this. Understand and accept though not admire.  
  
"The Medici were admirable," he said as he took Niccolò's hand and led him to his study. "They were able to be prince's without being prince's. To be Republican Princes, which is your ideal is it not?"   
  
"You have decided that it is my ideal," he allowed the answer to come off soft and easy. Delicate so the delicate would-be-prince could digest it.   
  
"And it is, though you may be oblivious to it. I've seen those scribblings of yours, read a few and don't look at me like that," and Cesare laughing was all charm and good humour so Niccolò couldn't look at him like that for long. "Comme ça, mon cher, let it pass. You are quite despairing in me."   
  
"I felt I related the situation in a factual manner."   
  
"Situation?"   
  
"Of the murder of Vitellozo et al."   
  
The duke laughed again and the dust was kicked up. Midday sun was blinding them, bouncing off snow and ice as they lingered by a window. His fingers moved from Niccolò's arm to face and the older man was doing his best to look wry, to look coy, to look amused and in control, to look everything but what he actually was which was terrified. Leonardo had said that no one stayed sane long around the Borgias, no one remained as they were around the Borgias. The Borgias bring death, after all, of one kind or another.   
  
"I was thinking more of the treatise, or the beginnings of one."   
  
"The dregs of one. It'll not be published, no one would understand it. They would think I advocate what you did."   
  
"Don't you?"   
  
"Yes…and no," the wry grin was too wry so Borgia kissed the lips to make it go away and Niccolò's face changed to one of long suffering amusement. "I will be returning to Florence soon."   
  
"That you will," hummed Cesare as he pulled away leaving cold winter light where he had been.   
  
"And you go to your sister?"  
  
"Not I." The laugh was bitter. "My Father, perhaps. I do not pry, though."  
  
"I'm sure you don't have to." He gave a blank look and Cesare stared at him, calculating, unsure, and finally decided to not take offense and gave a bland smile. He held out his hand with a flourish and with an equal flourish Niccolò accepted.   
  
"Tell me about your treatise, how will it open?"   
  
"With a letter, a letter to friend," he was thinking of Piero or Biagio or perhaps someone he had yet to meet. He was thinking of Rome and of Il Magnifico's disgust with it. He was thinking of the beautiful Lucretia and wondered how she felt about it, how she lived from day to day with a father and a brother who looked at her in such ways. He was ignoring Marietta and the unwritten, unsent letters which meant he was rueing Marietta and desperately trying to think of someone else. So he thought of Tommaso and Francesca. Of the farm and the sheep and how the crops were doing. Of Francesco and the wicked grin he would wear that was too worldly for a man of the cloth. Of the French court and how Louis positively laughed when he said he was from Florence. What? That little city? What do they want now? Laughed some more and dismissed him more with a look than with words. Florence wasn't worth words.   
  
So he thought of these things and led Cesare through the maze of the library and rambled on about mercenary troops and fate and Rome and Gaius Julius and everything that wasn't important to this world.  
  


  
  
Francesco was waiting in his rooms when he returned with hair wet from melting snow and colour in his cheeks.   
  
"Been having fun?" He was bitter and amused all at once and Niccolò wondered how all the Soderini men seemed to be able to adopt both feelings at the same time and convey them so well.   
  
"Cesare wished for company."   
  
"Did he?" A look that Niccolò couldn't even begin to convey with words. "Iacopo has made progress, we should all be back to Florence soon. Piero wants to see you directly you arrive."   
  
"Does he?" His back was to the older man as he poured wine with more concentration than the task truly required.   
  
"Of course, a personal account of the goings on here. Dispatches can only convey so much, after all." The bishop crossed the room, standing so Niccolò could look no where but at him. "What has been going on here? You've kept Borgia in remarkably good spirits and on our side."   
  
"You're wrong, recent events have kept him in good spirits and logic has kept him on our side."   
  
"Logic?" Sneered.   
  
"He can be remarkably logical. Painfully logical."   
  
"Coldly logical."   
  
He nodded in agreement but said no more, handed Francesco a glass instead. To health, to long life, to the Republic, to love, to living – they forgot what else to add and drank anyway.    
  


  
  
It was in February that Cesare came to say farewell. To God.  _A dieu._  May they both commend themselves unto him when the time is right. Niccolò smiled and refrained from asking how things were with the family, how was his Father the Holy Father? How was his sister the Madonna? How was his brother the Rock of the Church who wasn't actually the Rock of the Church?   
  
"I'll miss you, I think." The younger man said with a careful glance at the window, the door, the walls.   
  
"We all have hardships we must bear." Said so philosophically that Cesare was forced to laugh which made Niccolò feel better. Situations were always in the clear if someone was laughing. He wasn't sure he could handle another Marietta-farewell.   
  
"Indeed," a delicate pause. Niccolò wondered if he had spoken would it have shattered like a millennia old stain glass? Or perhaps more like an over used wine glass, thick based and dirty. "I am going south, to Rome."   
  
"I heard. To help your brother."   
  
"The Orsini are causing problems." He looked at Niccolò who only nodded with an expressionless face. "I forget, sometimes, that Lorenzo married an Orsini."   
  
"And we Florentines do not love him for it, I can assure you."   
  
"Should have married a local girl, then? No back end entrances into Rome?"   
  
The joke was old but they both had the grace to laugh so the moment passed. Cesare leaned in for a kiss as Niccolò turned his head to look out the window, a bird had called, thus the kiss missed and the older man felt that perhaps it was as it was meant to be.   
  
They shook hands the next day and Niccolò knew he would never see the would-be-duke again so left with a memory of the winter sun shining on a black and silver doublet and snow white shirt showing at the cuffs and a black hat with a feather that was too pure, too garish, and too present.   
  
  
..  
  
  
Piero Soderini was zero when Niccolò returned to Florence with a triumphant smile and a triumphant Iacopo. Zero as they shook hands, embraced him as zero, looked at him as zero and Niccolò began to understand why the Greeks hadn't been able to stomach the concept.   
  
"You have your treaty," he said as he took Niccolò's arm and lead him from the palazza to his house. They were to go to see the rest of the Signoria tomorrow, today was real politics. Save the shows for when they were well rested. "I understand that the terms were good."   
  
"Only what is due to the loyal allies of a prince."   
  
"A would-be-prince," a gentle reminder. Niccolò remembered the drunken night from a year ago and realized that he had grown old since then. So that was how it was to end. With Tommaso still a boy, Piero a zero, and Niccolò old.   
  
"A would-be-prince who is now a prince. You haven't been to Imola."   
  
He could see the limp bodies and the dogs with blood on their muzzles and the pleasure and horror of the people. What was left of the bodies had been given to the forest. Cesare had said that we came from dirt so we might as well go back to dirt and Niccolò hadn't the stomach to say he was blaspheming.   
  
"Regardless, the terms were agreeable or so Iacopo led me to believe." Piero had softened and perhaps zero was turning into one.   
  
"He led you rightly. Why do you think the Greeks banned zero?"   
  
"I'm sure it was all you."   
  
"Hardly," he shrugged, leaning in so their shoulders touched as they made their way up narrow stairs. "All Iacopo, please. All Iacopo. Maybe a bit of Francesco, but never me."   
  
The look given to him was in the negatives but at least it wasn't zero.  
  
"Still," he continued accepting the bread and cheese given to him. "Why did the Greeks ban the concept of zero?"  
  
"I'm hardly a mathematician."   
  
"And I'm hardly a philosopher but I make an honest try at it. Tell me, why are people afraid of a concept?" 

  
  
Marietta was a concept, Piero reminded him when they were two bottles in and the sun had sunken beyond the horizon. Marietta was a concept, just as Francesca was, and Cesare, and Tomasso, and Il Magnifico, and even Piero the son of Maginifico. And he, Niccolò, was a concept. So was he afraid of them and himself? He had answered that yes, yes he was afraid of them and himself. He had his answers then, Piero said amiably and poured more wine.   
  
According to legend, Piero murmured, eyes unfocussed. According to legend Gaius Julius  was descended from an old patrician family. Sorry, that fact was not legend. Gaius Julius was of the house of Marius, of the famous enemies of Sulla. But legend which Piero was sure Gaius Julius took for fact, had it that the family, the Jules, were decedents from the jewel of the Gods. Venus whose smile was the sun, whose hair was fire and blood, whose skin was alabaster and marble, whose still beating heart was kept locked in a chest. It beat even though it was dead. But if it beat in a chest it wouldn't beat in her breast and cause her pain so it would have to do. Littered around the dead still beating heart were letters penned with desperate, unknown and unknowable hands, and those letters were now ashes because ashes were all she, and everyone, could handle.   
  
This story, this fact, of Gaius Julius being of the house of Venus, was important, Piero insisted to Niccolò, important because he had been told it was important. Back when Polizianno made the legends facts and facts legends. Never forget, Piero had been told, never forget that the greatest of the Romans was descended from a God and that was why Florence must dislike him, no matter if she secretly admired him. For no good has come to her through Gods and sons of Gods. Best keep them at a distance, honor them with crossed fingers and crossed hearts, but only and always from afar. Remember that, my little Niccolò, remember that. And he did. 

  
  
  
Leonardo wrote to him. Reminded him that his debt was fulfilled – would he please be so kind as to remind the Signoria? They've an awful habit of forgetting these things, conveniently. Thank you. Too kind, etc.   
  
And Cesare sent his good will. Good will – his words not mine, Niccolò. Before he left for the field, before he left as head of his mercenary army, before he left for his fall. I agree with you now, Niccolò. He will fall. He will flee and Florence? What will Florence do?   
  
Ask the French what we ought to do, Niccolò wanted to write back. As we always do. Close our gates to the disgraced bastard, the disgraced would-be-prince. Close our gates, our walls and hearts. As we always do, as we always shall do.  
  
And how is your Piero? The letter was mocking him now, he was sure of it. How is your Francesca? Done. How is your Tommaso? Young. How is your Marietta? With child. Angry. Hurt. How is your Piero? Talk to him, the letter said. You ought to talk to him, you always have done.   
It was at this point he burnt it.    
  


  
  
There was news from Rome. News that things were going well for the would-be-prince, the would-be-holy-father. News that things were going badly for the would-be-prince and Holy Father. That things were going nowhere, everywhere, that things were just going.   
  
Niccolò heard it all with a patient smile and ignored the imploring looks from his colleagues who wanted to know what the would-be-philosopher thought about it all. And the would-be-philosopher was doing his best to remember the words of the would-be-inventor and tried his best to be a man first, disengaged philosopher second. So instead of debating with Tomasso or lecturing the ever patient Piero he wrote letters. Letters to Cesare advising him, admonishing him, pleading with him, imploring him.   
  
 _My Dear Cesare,_ he would write with an ironic smile.  _Mon cher Cesare, comme les francais diraient. Mon cher Cesare, qui est pas Julius et pas Gaius et quoi? Vous etes quoi?_  
  
He'd write to him as a friend, as a brother, as a teacher, as a pupil, as a Cicero to Gaius Julius, as a Petrarch to long dead Cicero, as Nicomedes to that impertinent Roman boy who claimed, with eager smiles, that he was a descendent of Venus. He would write till dawn and burn it all till sunset. Burn it all while remembering every single crafted phrase, every twist of ink, every second it took for the flourish of the signature to dry. He only bothered with sand when the person was actually important.   
  


  
  
"Are you all right?" Piero was watching him in the quiet way that reminded him of Marietta but never of Francesca. "You've been pensive lately."   
  
"Am I not allowed to be pensive?" He said it with his back to the older man. There was a reflection in the window and he saw Piero frown, hurt. "My apologies, it's not your fault." Still with back turned, he couldn't look the man in the face. He had come to the realization that he used sand with unsent letters to Piero but not to Francesca or Marietta or Cesare. That the would-be-prince was right cut deep. He hated it when men pre-destined to fall were right. Piero di Lorenzo il Magnifico had always annoyed him in that regard.   
  
"Niccolò, shall we have drinks? I brought wine," he knew Piero said it with a tentative smile though he could no longer see the reflection. "You've always liked my wine."   
  
"Tomasso has always liked your wine."   
  
"You did as well," wounded, wounded smiles. "Do you want to be alone, then? Shall I leave?" Even though you asked me here. It was unsaid but all the more loudly spoken for it.   
  
"Yes, please." A pause. "And I'm sorry. Please understand that," he had finally turned to face the older man. A letter was crumpled in his fist and he was reminded how noble Piero looked in the soft candle light.   
  
"For what?"   
  
"I don't know yet. I'll give you the details when I figure them out." There was a laugh that Piero had the grace to return.   
  
"I'll find you then, when you have it figured out."  
  
"And bring the wine."   
  
"That was a forgone conclusion."   
  
They parted with smiles and handshakes and promises to meet when the weather was better. It could have been worse, Niccolò reasoned, could have been much worse. 

  
  
  
_Leonardo,  
  
You asked that I write you back and to assure you that the Signoria are aware of your debt fulfillment. They are, have been since the day after your letter arrived. Put your mind at ease. Thank you.   
  
Florence is as she ever was and ever shall be. Preoccupied with herself and so ignorant of the less than grand role she plays in the world. The only thing saving her from full brutality of invasion is her art and her reputation as a cultural masterpiece. No one, not even the Germans, want to seem barbaric enough to invade a cultural masterpiece. So they leave us be.   
  
I have told Piero I want to be alone and it wasn't the first time I've lied to him since I've spent a good deal of my life lying to him. And you and Cesare were cruel enough to remind me of this almost every day in Imola. So now I am spinning new tales and telling new lies and it ought to be all right since I'll have plenty of material out of it for my memoir when I am old and crippled and made an invalid with gout or some other unfortunate disease. I can hear your laughter from here. Please stop for I am deathly serious.   
  
You will now be wondering about my wife since you always take care to remind me that I am a married man. She is well and with child and hoping for a boy, to please me. I am hoping for a girl, to annoy her. Marital bliss as you can tell. She is angry at me for leaving her all the time, hurt that I have eyes for others, and yet patiently thankful for my existence since I have given her the status of wife and mother. I'd rather her be angry and hurt and resentful than angry and hurt and thankful.   
  
Perhaps, one day, I will write sonnets. Perhaps, one day, I will be so in love everyone has to know it. Or perhaps, more accurately, I will find someone to whom I can express myself. Or perhaps, even more accurately, I will find the right words. I haven't yet, though I am trying. I wrote a poem, in the style of Polizianno thus Petrarch. It's utter crap, but it was somewhat fun to have a go at it. I think I'll try my hand at plays. Maybe I'll have better luck there than treatises and poetry. I've never been a very serious man, after all.   
  
I will one day write about Cesare and Imola and Urbino and Rome and Venice and everything that has happened since Livy on. I will call them The Prince and The Discourses and they will be grand. I will write about my love of the republic but hide it behind a veil of supposed love of the princedom. Princedoms are all the fashion now. I'll teach the prince how to make one from scratch but try and tell him that it should be a republic since the point of a political life is glory and what is glory but an ever lasting posthumous thing? Princedoms die with the prince, republics last for a bit longer.   
  
Florence has kept me warm despite the cold of February. I hope you are keeping warm as well and inventing impossible things and dreaming impossible dreams. You wouldn't be a Florentine if you didn't. You wouldn't be Leonardo if you didn't.   
  
  
  
Yours,   
  
N.M_

  
  
  
Winter was fading quickly when Piero decided to find him alone. Alone with letters on his desk and ink drying on paper before him. His hands were stained black and he remembered a night with a pale back and a picture painted with words into skin.   
  
"Leonardo said you wanted to speak with me," Piero opened slowly, unsure, wary. Leonardo had told him a month and a half ago. That Niccolò needed to see him. Those were his words: Your Protégé needs to see you, I think. But give it some time. He has stories he needs to fix in his mind. But he needs to see you.   
  
"Did he?" He sounded tired and Piero suddenly wanted to leave.   
  
"He said you had something to say," forced jocularity. He had to see that smile and when the younger man did smile it was something cruel. Cruel while all the while Niccolò was remembering every reason that he adored Piero.   
  
"Bastard can't keep to himself, can he?"   
  
The room relaxed around them, sharp shadows softened to dull hues of fading brown and gold. Niccolò was laughing and pouring him a drink.   
  
"He is a Florentine."  
  
"And an artist."   
  
"That too, but no need to sound bitter."   
  
Piero took a seat amiably, fingers laced and resting on the belt of his tunic looking all the world too wise for Niccolò's tastes.   
  
"I've a story for you," Niccolò finally said, pushing Piero's glass forward. Fingers brushed fingers but neither said anything.   
  
"Excellent, I have always loved your stories."   
  
"It's about a philosopher, a prince, an artist, and a man."   
  
"Sounds worthwhile, come be a good man and lets move closer to the fire. Shadows have never suited you well, you like to laugh too much."   
  
And Niccolò knew he was right. That the shadows never had suited him, that he did love to laugh and that the story had to be told. After all, he had been born with a gift for words that may have been a curse but regardless it was his and he'd be damned if he didn't use it.   
  
So he began by weaving a tale, a story, that wound its way through Piero's head and put forth foolish thoughts into his mind –  
  
  
  
  
  
 **1513, Outside Florence**  
  
  
The story was over and Niccolo sat waiting for the satisfaction that came with a tale well told. It was empty. The satisfaction. The pleasure was gone. He wondered when it had left and whether it would ever return. There was a smiling face in his mind, a smiling face of an older man with desperate eyes begging him for support, to help him – please, Niccolo, you have always been with me, kind to me. Piero had been so broken then. And Niccolo had shaken his head and turned around, hoping the Medicis would be good to him.   
  
He had been wrong.   
  
He had been very wrong. Princes fall hard and fast, this he had learned in the most bitter of ways.   
  
  
 _My dear Francesco Vettori, your magnificence,_    
  
  
The story was over and yet he wanted to write more, needed to write more, to continue it if only to continue a part of himself.   
  
  
 _I write and beg you to send good words about me to these new Medici princes. I write and beg you and cajole you and tease you to my submission. I write you stories, and stories, and fables, and fables more fabulous than Cesare's Prestor Jon. I write to you and say that though you never will see these words you will know these words because at least one man in this world must know and I am tired of whispering these tales to the wind and hoping, somehow, that Piero will hear them.  
  
I do not lie, Francesco. I have always kept my word and I shouldn't start breaking it now for my nature is unchangeable after forty three years of life.   
  
I do not lie, Francesco, but I do tell stories. I tell stories because I know of no other way. My letters are stories, my poems are stories, my treatises and plays. And the treatise you will receive is a story. An old story. A story Francesco Soderini reminded me about one night in Imola as I sat wishing I was elsewhere.   
  
"There was a man," he had said. "A man who wanted the sun and the moon and stars and in reaching for it all he fell. He fell sixty times and now lies forgotten and only his sins remain." He reminded me of Gaius Julius as we think of him so I wrote you and the Medicis a story and a treatise. I hope you will like it. I hope they will like it.   
  
I will send it to you. The treatise with a plea and if you will be so good as to tell me what you think of it. I am old, Francesco, I am tired, I am hurt, I am broken, I am poor. I wanted to be a prince. I've forgotten my own knowledge – that fate is never kind to princes.   
  
Give my love to the Medicis. May fate be kinder to them.   
  
  
I commend myself to you. Be happy.  
  
  
Niccolò Machiavelli, in Florence.  
December 10, 1513._  
  
  
He blew the candle out and sealed the letter with wax and a thumbprint.

 

 

  
  
  
\--  
  
  
 _I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.  
The evil that men do lives after them;  
The good is oft' interred with their bones.  
So let it be with Caesar._


End file.
